Our Venerable Father Martinian. The Holy Women Zoe and Photini (Svitlana).
Fast-free week.
1 John 1:8-2:6; Mark 13:31-14:2.
Read 1 John 1:8-2:6
In today’s reading from the first letter of St. John, John points out how we are all sinners: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8). Further, he says that in order to claim to know God, we must obey His commandments: “He who says ‘I know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:4).
As Christians, we must acknowledge our sinfulness and confess our sins. God already knows our sinfulness; denying it is only deceiving ourselves. Saying that we are sinners does not mean we should persist in our sin. Rather, we should heed our Lord’s command to the woman caught in adultery: “go, and do not sin again” (Jn. 8:11). John tells us in his letter that he is “writing this to you so that you may not sin,” and elsewhere St. Paul asks rhetorically: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1-2). Although we must always strive to completely get rid of sin from our lives, when we do fail, we must not despair. We know that “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not only for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:1-2). Christ freely forgives our sins when we repent of them. We must always strive to love and know God more deeply by following His commandments, and we will know we are in Him when we walk in His ways (1 Jn. 2:5-6). Whenever we deviate from the path, we know we can repent and turn back to Him.