Those who deny being sinful and refute all accusations, just and unjust alike, will be denied salvation. Unlike these, people, whose sight opens for them to see their sins, are able to see not only some of their sins, but the all-out distortion of their soul which is restlessly producing all kinds of sins. More than that: even good works are permeated with the poison of sin. When people get a clear vision of this, thanks to their own and other people’s experience on many thousand occasions, they become absolutely confident that it is impossible for them to heal the leper of their soul by their own forces, grow truly humble (show humbleness that is not artificial or self-assured) and stop rebuking other people and themselves get offended.
Such people will see the same, as their own, fallen nature in other people and feel sorry for them as their fellow-sufferers. They will stop to praise some and degrade others, and stop for good being accusatorial, insomuch as on the one hand, all people are fallen, and on the other – human criteria of judgement are not accurate and therefore deceptive, so, hard as he may try, man cannot be objective. How can people justify their sins then? How can they feel insulted if somebody accuses them having no – in their opinion – apparent proof of their fault, when we all have uncountable number of quite repulsive sins that are concealed for other people by the graciousness of God, Who covers our sins?
We should receive consolation not from our imaginary merits, but from incomprehensible Love of God for us, fallen, and from the Cross of Christ, “which is the image of thy glory and of thy bearing the ulcers of our transgressions.” Jesus Christ came to the world to restore the fallen image of humanity. Our ever-lasing gratitude is due to Him with His Father and the Holy Spirit from the entire creation!!!
Let all our merits disappear in front of Him, and let us appeal to God together with the publican, saying: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, be merciful to us, sinners.” Then, we will depart from this life, like the publican departed from the temple – justified; and enter into the “sheepfold” and find an eternal “pasture.”
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