What is the Christian?
The Christian loves Jesus Christ in the heart. The Christian loves God and neighbor in ease, and loves self without regard or thought to himself.
The Christian has an ordered life, praying the hours or praying according to a schedule he keeps daily.
The Christian loves strangers and knows by feeling what it means to love in personality, in conversation, and in case by case basis according to person.
The Christian loves and may or may not know how, for it is a grace from God, an unexplainable gift. The Christian lives in ease and also in discomfort in battling his body daily to become holy and to remain in his presence and love.
The Christian lives in ease but always does what is in line with love of self, neighbor and God, floating above the ideas of doing right and ascending beyond the conscience into love of God and doing all things in love. When he falls he searches his heart to ascend farther up than before in prayer, chastity, and love.
The Christian is ultimately defined by the presence of Christ in the soul and heart and remains close and sensitive to this indwelling, remaining in line with it. It is the Christian living and feeling and acting in line with Christ in the heart and soul that defines Christianity. The Christian is patient and waits for God's action. He rejoices in eternal life and his hope of heaven and does what is in line with love out of nature.
The Christian witnesses to Christ, is polite and stable and strong in defending the faith, yet joyful above all in sharing it. The Christian not only repents or changes from doing wrong but also searches in himself to know why what he did was displeasing to God and to understand.
The Christian expresses his faith outwardly in word, in speech, in prayer, as a way to let his light shine as Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount. The Christian lives in love and in ease and dies given and devoted to Christ.
Armen Leo Artashesian