NOTES for Mat 7:23
The whole life of the Kingdom is built on a system of relationships. Relationships that bind people to one another. Relationships that bind them to God and to Christ. Finally, the relationships of Christ Himself with His heavenly Father. These relationships actually constitute the spiritual foundation of the Kingdom and give it form. That is why relationships turn out to be something absolutely important and valuable in themselves. But how, under what conditions, is a real, deep relationship possible? A relationship is an intention, an act of will. And the strength of an act of will is determined by a person's inner state, by the quality of his life.
Not by what he does, but by how he exists. At creation, God gives each person that power of life which, like a stream, flows through him, and in which he in turn also moves as in a stream. And He also gives each person His breath, the breath of life. The presence of this breath determines the quality of the stream of life in which we abide and which abides in us. The will is only a manifestation of this same breath of life. It is born where Presence meets nature. The measure of the fullness of Presence determines the quality of nature, the quality of life. And therefore also the intensity of the act of will, its depth and strength. And with this, the depth of relationship, the thing on which the Kingdom is founded.
Everything else, all of a person's outward activity, is only an outward manifestation of that stream of life which abides in us and in which we abide. And miracles... well, miracles are possible. Healings too. And the casting out of demons. But for the person himself this often changes nothing. Both miracles and healings are performed by the action of God's breath. And demons flee from it as well. But whether this breath changes the person himself and gives a different quality to his existence depends only on the person.
Of course, this will not happen by itself, automatically. And if a person relied on works, even miraculous and supernatural ones, rather than on living relationships with Christ, he may find himself with nothing at the end of the way. For all the miracles and healings happened, in essence, only around him, not changing his own life, that depth of it which in the Kingdom becomes the surface. Then there sounds an answer unexpected for the person and frightening in its unexpectedness. Alas, a fully natural answer.