“Do not overcome by evil but overcome evil with good”, Rom.12: 21. This is the sum and substance of an ideal Christian living, but how many can follow this concept that is easy to preach but is an Herculean task when we translate this principle into practice. While this was the life and blood of st. Paul’s preaching, he practiced it before he asked his converts to follow this cardinal canon of a virtuous journey, whereas we preach it despite we even don’t attempt to grasp what we impart others to do. This is the reason that there are not many evangelists like St.Paul and st. Peter in the annals of Christian chronicles. For St.Paul, it was the faith that triggered him to be a martyr who could follow the preaching of his Master, Rom.3: 27, so also for st.Peter to lay willingly downward on the cross for his crucifixion, in spite of the denial of his Lord and went back to his old profession of fishing after the ignominious departure of his guru by taking also the other disciples of Jesus. Virtuous life is a product of laying our dedicated life into the hands of our Saviour who sacrificed everything for the loved ones. Hence a righteous life that buttresses faith in the Lord is the foundation of an ideal way of life. The crystal clear faith that emanates virgin love, which impels self-sacrifice, is the corner stone of Christian charity. Unless the fire of love that saturates our thoughts and actions works in harmony, we can’t overcome evil with good. Only those who have self-respect and self-examination can only respect and love other people.

The unity of man in the form of God:
Man is created in the image and likeness of a Triune God of three hypostasis or personae. Many theologians nod the theory of a God who is only a force, spirit or formless substance of radiations like the sun and the stars. As man is an image and likeness of the Trinitarian God of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, he has also a celestial or ethereal body, a visible mortal frame and a spirit that works in unison with the cosmic spirit. Man’s inner man, therefore, is likely to have the image of the Father, the peripheral body having a resemblance of the Son of Man and the working of the spirit similar to that of the Spirit of God unifying all that is within and without. As the Trinitarian God is inseparable, the earthly man who is also a unique entity of body, mind and spirit is inseparable on this plane of our existence. Despite Jesus said that God is Spirit, Jn.4: 24-25, He says that those who worship Him should worship in truth and spirit. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”. This verse is a transparent revelation of the inseparable truth of the Holy Trinity because truth means or finger points to Jesus, Jn.14; 6. “…the truth will make you free”, Jn.8: 32. Only the Son of man who is sinless only can make us free from the bondage of this tumultuous life. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is freedom…”, 2.Cor.3: 12-18. “His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen…”, Jn.5: 38. Moses had a glimpse of His splendour. Prophet Amos and also Ezekiel saw Him as in the form of a man during their visions. All such testimonies prove beyond doubt that God has a form, image and likeness that He has bequeathed to us while He was in the process of creating and breathing into us. When man leaves his mortal frame, his celestial image is brooded over by the Spirit of God, just as he is here on earth. The unfathomable beauty of the resurrected body that is commingled with the earthly elements and shape is a mystery, which is only enshrined in the Book of Life. As man is a demi-god, we are also expected to do the work that is uniformly executed by the spirit, body and soul of an individual, just as the Holy Trinity has only one essence that the same likes and dislikes and actions, the one inseparable Trio.

Man, a duplicate God:
Man’s thoughts, words and actions are supposed to be having a unity in everything, the way God exemplifies in us. But that is not what is happening in the fallen state. While man’s mind or soul oscillates between the physical and ethereal, the impulse of his body is to dominate and satisfy the lust of the flesh: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like, whereas the fruits of the Holy Spirit are: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..”, Gal.5: 16-24. This continual war between the physical body and the inner being within us make man a slave of the seen man, making him to sin because the flesh is weak. No man except the Son of Man can remain free from sins because He only is the Incarnate One, whereas our body pertains to the body of fallen Adam. To win over the flesh, therefore, seemingly is only a prerogative of the Incarnate God, despite the room is open for man to become a penultimate God by continual strivings that only a limited number of people can do by fasting, repentance and prayer. It can be assumed that there could be having only 144,000 virgins in the whole history of mankind, Rev.7&14. Genetics and upbringings also play a vital role in becoming a saint. To do good is the intention of most of the human beings, yet we find it impossible to win over the impulse of the body, as there is a foreign supremacy that is ruling our thoughts, mind and body. This alien force is a sleepless, tireless and deathless rebel who has the power to enslave a prey to induce with sleep, tiredness and death. Unless man finds refuge in another deathless, tireless and sleepless entity, it is hardly possible to defeat the mantras of the diabolic power. Though it is a war that takes place within our own inner self, between good and bad, God and Evil, we tend to become like meat in the sandwich because our inner self is enclosed within the flesh and God’s Spirit within.

Many-sidedness of God’s Preaching:
Last Supper with Jesus who gave His own body is a self-sacrifice, but His parting new commandments to love one another is a mantra that has confused and bewildered the New Age worshippers because the OT commandment of ‘an eye for an eye and an ear for an ear’ is normal and easy for us to be tuned to our flesh and daily activities. One of my friends asked me whether Jesus has misdirected us by giving the commandment of love, as there is hardly anyone at the moment that can love anybody other than oneself or others for selfish motives. It is a common tendency today that people love that become a recipe for hating because pure love has vanished into the mist by the onslaught of money and power games. He says that he is sick of this life because there is only the cosmetic love that only is used for exploitation of the vulnerable and the good. Any given help that only can lead to later acrimony or animosity is proven to be a spiritual death. Why, therefore, help and love that only brings ruin and agony for us. Love is an inherent passion that cannot be avoided; therefore, ‘it is better to be loved than never be loved at all’ (Lord Tennyson). Seemingly for an equal footing Jesus doesn’t take the departed believers into New Jerusalem now, the reason for the dead are kept in Paradise till all the would-be occupants of New Jerusalem who are living on earth at present and also the future ones flock together till resurrection that leads to the Last Judgement, Heb.11: 40. If our position in the blissful world is a brotherly equality, we are bound to love one another genetically because we have a common Father, proving that we are all the sons of the same Father. While love is an instinct of the stratosphere, it is not possible to be practiced at all purely in this sphere of carnivorousness, but if one aspire to go to that luminous plane one has to try in acquiring the instinct of super love right here now. Love is the litmus test for our entry into that cosmic plane of eternal happiness. The inherent love is the vibration that brings Eternity to our door; expecting somebody loves in reciprocity is a self-centered attitude. Our onward journey of love generally does reward nothing in return for our earthly pleasure and high status; it is only an immanent force that helps us in transcending our luminous body into that plane of bliss and happiness.

The OT period that reaped ‘an eye for an eye’ life expectancy, it certainly invited covenants, statutes and commandments to be of paramount importance in buttressing their faith, whereas the LOVE of the NT age that amalgamate both faith and love in an intrinsic pattern is the religion of the Holy Spirit. This new commandment of LOVE that can excel even the fluctuating faith and relationship or righteous life in its own field separately, despite faith without abstract love can make some yields for our salvation, Mt.5: 19, is the visa for our Heavenly Abode. Full sacrifice of one’s life is the lifeblood of the ethereal outcome of the abstract LOVE; without implicit faith and love Christianity only can remain as a skeleton of cosmetic form. A full definition of that superlative love is exhibited in 1.Corithians 13. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…..so faith, hope, love abides, these 3; but the greatest of all things is love”. This sort of sublime love only can create wonders, but the nerve center of this is sacrifice. We have no right to expect anything in return in this life because the gratitude for which goes to the Provider of our breath. There is nothing for us to claim in this life. If we don’t do a rightful thing at its appointed time, there is a multitude of 6 billion people out there to do God’s work at its right time. I am only a big zero here, but can be a higher digit in the afterlife, provided I dedicate my entire life at the foot of the Almighty.

Savior’s Sacrifice:
The Triune God loved the world; hence the Father sent His only begotten Son to save the world for His sacrifice, a prelude of that is seen in Isaac’s sacrifice by Father Abraham. There was none other than Jesus for the sacrifice for the entire humanity because there is no other unblemished one other than the Messiah. This is the main reason of singing the Trisalgion adoration in the beginning in the mainstream church liturgy soon after remembering the herald who certified His identity and St.Mary who gave birth Jesus. As Jesus is the only sinless one, He only could nail down our common adversary on the cross, the qualification for which is sinlessness, the sign of superlative sign. The footprints of sinlessness that Jesus left behind are the track that terminates in the abode of our lodestar. Just as Jesus saved the whole world, our duty is to lead others to that salvic path by being a sensor of our Lord. Despite sinful we are in our flesh, we can sublimate our stains of sins from our blood by the potential emission of penitential tears, so that we can be a reflector of that Heavenly sacrifice. Just as Jesus emptied His Heavenly position for the sake of the world, His main emissaries also followed the Master’s footprints that invigorated them for the conquests and the resultant harvests, the sign of selfless love and its proceeds, at every nook and corner of the world. This is the mission that is expected of us. Jesus sent His sheep into the fold of the wolves, so that the carnivorous wolves can be converted as sheep by giving our lustful flesh as a ransom. The sole aim of life on earth is to mortify the flesh that surely corrupts our soul, and conquer the unseen world of the most Holy One.

Only a pure and austere life can defeat the dark world of the fallen legions. Jesus, the only role model, who only can conquer our common enemy, has showed us by His own blood that anyone who want to reoccupy the thrones that are left vacant by the eviction of the rebellious legions ought to follow the path that the Saviour carved out for us. He preached what He wanted to show as an example, Sermon on the Mount and the gist of the gospels, before He bowed His face on the cross. Using the dart of the devil against him only help the dark forces to sell their military hardware to us at an enormous price of vanquishing our soul for him. Those who strive hard by the spirit of Jesus’ lifeline and teachings and of the devoted souls before the arrival of Jesus only have the qualification of togetherness with the Lord. Psalms 15, epistles of the apostles and their lifestyles only can whisper the spirit of the luminous world that is yet unborn in us. Think purely, preach and do good is the only way of overcoming the fortress of the dark world. While the first one is the work of the mind, the second one of the soul, the action that pertains to the body is the panacea for our salvation that can be obtained by our devoted help and support given to our fellow beings.

As many pedestrian believers think that there is no devil and its empire, they don’t try to conquer the citadel of the abysmal regions. Know that there is a common enemy for God and His children and we ought to try to help our Father in His scheme of throwing the infernal one into the bottomless pit of sulphurous fire that is waiting for us also, unless we cleave unto the Lord who want to help us. Fighting against the devil for the outright victory is our aim in this life. If we are prepared to receive Jesus at His coming, there is no panic but vigil is our alert. “But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness…”, 1.Thess.5: 4-5.