{"id":7434,"date":"2022-10-10T09:45:39","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7434"},"modified":"2022-10-10T09:45:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:45:40","slug":"underappreciated-by-todays-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/underappreciated-by-todays-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Underappreciated By Today\u2019s World"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As Christians, we are used to abstaining from a vast array\nof worldly things. We are called to be different, and we are hyper-aware of it.\nWe know that modern society is deviating further and further away from the\nmessage of Christ. Whether it be through the rise of the LBGTQ+ movement or\nthings like puberty blockers and gender reassignment therapy being pushed on\ntoday\u2019s children and youth, we can see the devil slowly imprinting himself\neverywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite us knowing the absolute evil in our world today, we still\nhave to fit in society somehow. And it\u2019s a real struggle. However, we have\nlatched onto the notion of New Year\u2019s resolutions. Every December, we devise\nfor ourselves a ridiculous set of goals and aspirations for the new year and\ninevitably fail most of them. But then next December comes, and we do the same\nagain, promising ourselves that next year will be different. Regardless of our\nsuccesses or failures, the idea of New Year\u2019s resolutions is a positive.\nImproving yourself as a person is always beneficial. Recognising one\u2019s\nshortcomings shows a high level of emotional maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, we celebrated the Coptic New Year. And I\ndidn\u2019t make any resolutions. El Nayrouz is one of the most beautiful events in\nthe church calendar, where we celebrate the martyrs of the church. The\nremembrance of the saints provides us with courage, knowing that these men and\nwomen endured atrocities that the human body was not designed to withstand. We\noften perceive the saints, especially the martyrs, to have an unattainable\ndegree of holiness, but in reality, they were merely human. Saint Moses the Black\nwas a murderer and Saint Paul had made it his mission to eradicate all\nChristians at one point. Even Peter denied Christ three times. These people\nwent on to become some of the most revered saints in our church. This\nhighlights to us one simple thing- it is never too late to turn to Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let’s make our New Year\u2019s resolutions. Let\u2019s all work on\nourselves like we are inevitably going to do in 2-3 months. But this time,\nlet\u2019s change it slightly. With the help of our confession fathers, let\u2019s do\nsomething our priests mention every other sermon. Let\u2019s develop a spiritual\ncanon. Pray. Read the Bible. Serve. Listen to sermons. None of these things are\nnew. We all know that we should do them, but sometimes we don\u2019t. Laziness,\nforgetfulness, business, whatever. It honestly doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll leave off with a quote from Saint Paul (as you do):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTherefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation:\nold things have passed away; behold, all things have become new\u201d (2 Cor. 5:17)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Christians, we are used to abstaining from a vast array of worldly things. We are called to be different, and we are hyper-aware of it. We know that modern society is deviating further and further away from the message of Christ. Whether it be through the rise of the LBGTQ+ movement or things like … Continue reading “Underappreciated By Today\u2019s World”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-7434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-new-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7437,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7434\/revisions\/7437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}