The evangelist describes the reasons for unbelief in Jesus quite exhaustively. He divides all unbelievers into two categories: those who do not want to see the truth and those who are simply afraid. The second case is more or less understandable: in every age fear and cowardice have been among the chief obstacles on the path of righteousness, preventing those who walk or want to walk that path from making the right decisions. The first category is more complicated. It is probably hard to imagine a person who in ordinary life voluntarily blinds himself or simply closes his eyes so that, no longer seeing the reality around him, he can replace that vision with fantasies. And understandably so: in everyday life the consequences of such an act can be most unexpected and unpleasant. Yet in spiritual life many people apparently make just this choice, and quite often, although the consequences here are hardly less serious. Why is that?

The Athenian philosopher Socrates, who lived five centuries before the birth of Christ, seems already to have understood the reason for such behavior. He said that people often take a small good for a great one and a great evil for a small one, as well as the reverse, simply because what is large looks smaller at a distance than it really is. This applies to spiritual life just as much as to everyday life.

Giving up comfortable and familiar views and a settled worldview, especially a religious one, is at the very least uncomfortable. The day of Judgment seems so distant, so small compared with this discomfort, that... it is disregarded—perhaps in the hope that by the time it comes, things will somehow have settled down, worked themselves out, and resolved themselves, and that we will somehow enter the Kingdom after all at little cost, without any particular sacrifice or loss.

And it is best to get rid of those who, as the saying goes, care far too much. There will be no quiet life with them anyway. How to get rid of them is merely a technical question.

There are only two causes of unbelief: unwillingness to see the obvious, and fear. But if we think about it, it is not hard to understand that the root is one, and it is precisely fear. Only, as we see, fear comes in different forms. There is open, unconcealed fear: in such cases a person usually admits simply and directly that he refuses to see and hear certain things only because he is afraid. He understands that once he hears and sees something, he will have to draw certain conclusions from what he has seen and heard, and then change something in his life, and the changes can bring at least undesirable consequences. Here everything is clear: a person does not want to listen to Jesus or follow Him because he does not want extra problems. This is, of course, bad, but still not the same as in the second case. Here everything is fairly open, and the fearful person understands it all himself: he knows that he is being cowardly and realizes what his problem is. Besides, although overcoming such fear is not easy, in general it is not so difficult either: this is precisely an external fear; it binds a person from outside, frightening him above all with external consequences.

The second cause is more serious and deeper. Here too there is fear, but a different kind, an inner fear. From the outside such a person may fear nothing at all. He may not tremble at the thought of the consequences of his choice. But such a person can fear for his inner world, and fear very much.

Usually the first type of fear seizes a secular, unbelieving person who tends to rely on external things and to attach great importance to what can easily be lost in the event, for example, of persecution. The second fear is more characteristic of a religious person, for whom the chief value is his inner world. Such a person is certain that this world cannot be taken from him even if his life is taken, and therefore he has nothing to fear from outside. But from within, the world of a religious person is very vulnerable, and such a person constantly watches carefully to make sure that no one somehow destroys his religiosity. If he senses in someone's words a threat to his religiosity, he at once becomes blind and deaf, simply for the sake of self-preservation.

Only the Savior can free us from both of these fears, for He can unite everyone who trusts Him to the life of His Kingdom. And the breath of the Kingdom that has entered a person's heart cannot be taken away from that person or destroyed. Then fear disappears too, because there is nothing more to fear.

Everyone is familiar with the situation when you offer someone something important, beautiful, valuable, necessary, or tasty, and the person refuses. One of the most typical reactions can be formulated childishly like this: "Fine then, I did not want it that much anyway," or even more cheerfully, "That means there will be more for me." But speaking this way, we pretend that another person's neglect does not touch us and that we are "free people living in a free country," that something of one's own can be dear to each person, and that we respect another person's choice.

In reality, beneath this showy calm lies hurt that what is precious to you turns out to be unnecessary to others. Gradually this hurt can poison life even more: it begins to feel as though it was not the thing offered that was refused, but that you yourself are not loved, not respected, not accepted. And then it begins...

Glory to God that He is not like that at all! When we refuse what He shares with us - not merely something important to Him, but also that without which no person will be truly happy - He still says that He does not judge us (see John 12:47). Then He will add that each person will be his own judge (see John 12:48). And this is an astonishing truth: the Lord cannot deprive us of salvation; only we ourselves can deprive ourselves of it. He not only does not condemn us, He does not even judge us for it. It simply hurts Him very much...