Venerable Euphrosyne of Polotsk, Hegumena of the Monastery of the Holy Saviour; Our Venerable Father and Confessor Michael, Bishop of Synada.
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat.
Acts 15:5-34; John 10:17-28.
Read John 10:17-28
The question of what constitutes a true believer of Jesus as the Messiah is one of the themes in this passage. Jesus answers this question by declaring that He has told them that He is the Messiah but they refuse to believe Him. Another question that arises is how does one come to the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah. Within this question lies one of the main teachings of the Christian life, that is, the importance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. When a person possesses an abundance of these gifts, that person becomes more disposed to being able to accept God and His teachings so as to be able to enter into communion with Him. One of the things that we notice is that those Jews who were more reluctant to follow Jesus were most likely lacking in the capacity to develop these gifts in their own lives. The same sort of scenario is active in our present world. There are individuals today who are also reluctant to believe that Jesus is both the Messiah and God. Those of us who are trying to be true believers and followers of Jesus Christ may want to examine in more detail how active are these gifts in our own lives and perhaps we will conclude that we want to further develop them as we continue our journey to be in communion with God.