NOTES for Mat 19:27-29

If these words are taken directly, so to speak with mathematical strictness, they turn out to be insurmountably difficult. Where is the selflessness here? What is disinterestedness here? To give in order to receive a hundred times more - that is simply an incredibly successful investment!

In fact, something completely different is meant here. When such doubts overcome us, one text comes to mind. The person who wrote it found faith while awaiting execution for murder. He had no education, and for that very reason the text itself is perceived simply as a miracle. This is what he writes: 'Yes, I accepted faith in mortal danger, when it was unknown whether I would be pardoned or not; but even in childhood, when dogs attacked in the yard or neighborhood boys threatened to beat me, I ran to my parents. So what is strange in the fact that now I run to my Heavenly Father?'

Here lies a very important distinction. Did he accept faith because in his situation it was the best way out and nothing else remained for him? Because it was useful for him to think that God and immortality exist? 'Benefit,' a clever and cold atheist will think. But if one looks closely, how much sincerity there is in these words, how much childlike trustfulness there is in them, then not with the mind - no, in no case - but only with the heart can one feel that the truest truth is hidden precisely here.

And then you understand: the essence here is not calculation and not the search for benefit. One simply needs, like a child, with eyes squeezed shut, to cling to God as to mommy who has come to pick you up from kindergarten - and then... only then is it given to you.