Not every believer has an appetite for the things of God – but THIS IS the decisive factor whether he will enter into the Kingdom of God or not. “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness…”(Mt. 5:6). To refuse His invitation means not only that we are not interested in God, in His righteousness and affairs, but we don‘t desire any fellowship neither with Him, nor with His people. This is also the test whether we are in­deed the children of the Kingdom or not. We move in this world and must live with various people where there is no deep, essential or lasting unity, harmony, agreement, cohesion, connec­tion, trust, friendship, etc., because we belong to two different worlds. But with people that are faithful to God and His Word, with the Bride of Christ, it is something completely different; with them we are at home, we are one family. This unity is not something we decide that we will have, it is something that simply happen to us without our conscious effort. No one has to explain it to us or to lead us to it. We are led to it by the Holy Spirit automatic­ally, sovereignly, quietly, without great “ecumenical deba­tes”, with­out human efforts. The unity with Christ does not lie on the foundation of truth, or teaching, or doctrines nor on the principles of faith… it lies on the foundation of the LIFE of Christ, which Life is eter­nal and which is lived also by God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and us! If we, therefore, failed somewhere to start or continue in gaining the Image of Christ in our being, then there must be in us some barrier, obstacle and we should uncover that barrier or obstacle and search out what it is and where it is. It could be unbeliefof any kind. Every piece of unbelief means that we stand on ourground and not on the ground of Christ. I believe that this we have also experienced in our earthly life, except that, maybe, we did not realize it as clearly as today.

In the above stated example (Mt. 22:1-14), there is also another point of disappointment, which we have to take into consideration. God comes to us with His Grace and invites us, and invites us, and invites us – for more than 2,000 years – and a question comes up here: Who will respond? Who will react? Who will receive His invitation? Because this Word of God describes the case and the situation of very many Christians. They are totally indi­ffer­ent, disinterested, carefree, easygoing toward all such things – toward God, toward His feast, toward His people! His invitation doesn’t touch them at all; it has no value for them, no appeal, no meaning. They have no comprehension, no sense, no feeling, no con­science nor any intelligence that in front of them there they have either a very important duty, an obligation or they are in danger of losing something enormously priceless even vitally im­portant. And THAT IS THEIR JUDGMENT, that is their condemnation, that is their destruct­ion, that is their destiny!

The fact standing before God’s Court does not say that they COULD NOT come, but that they DID NOT WANT to come! They did not even want to know what there will be in the King­dom, how they could serve the Lord there. No, they decided in themselves that they will not want to know. God knows our heart, but this is not even the question that we are in our heart like that, but that we with our free will take the position: “I am not interested in that, I do not want it, I will not go that way…” THIS is always the basis for condemn­ation, and that, without pardon. When you desire to go somewhere else than to the King­dom – then go there! God’s offer may escape us, may be lost, may be put far beyond our reach. God called the Jewish nation to the Kingdom of His Son – and they started to de­vise excuses because they were not interested. Just look at them! During these 2,000 years on earth, they were vagabonds, hated, persecuted, blinded, murdered, without any king­dom or home! They lost the Kingdom of Heaven! (Mt. 8:11,12)

2) How do we want to be prepared for the Lord and the Kingdom of God? And how do we want to enter into it? Answer: By our meekness! Example? Gideon. When the Lord was pre­­­paring him for his “military campaign” against the enemies of Israel, his first statement was: “I am the least in my father’s house” (Judg. 6:15b). In other words: “I am not worthy of such a high calling, I am not able of such a great task”. This honest ad­mission about his personal unworthiness from his pure heart was the key for his calling by the Lord where he gained one of the most astonishing military victories, which the “least son in his father’s house”, the son of the least potential could have ever gained in the world history of wars. Gideon began with 32,000 men, these were reduced to 10,000 and finally to 300 men. With these 300 men “armed” with lamps and trumpets, he defeated the fully armed armies of Midianites and Amalekites, which were as grasshoppers for multitude (Judg. 7:1-12). God will never call us and make us victors or useful for His Purposes until He finds in our heart a conviction about our personal unworthiness. While we have in our heart a conviction about our personal value, importance, ability, superiority, all this a fruit of pride, then we are for the Lord useless! The Lord is able to discern a pretended, false meekness from a true and pure conscience of our own unworthiness.

How long does it really take for a Christian to learn this lession? Let us never have even a thought or persuasion that we have in ourselves some merit, worthiness before the Lord, which others should discern, recognize and appreciate. Or, that we would be given prefe­rence, advantage or favor to be positioned into a higher status where we would attain to the appropriate recognition, so our value and importance would be noticed and taken into the consideration. Many Christians compare themselves with others, they feel superior or more educated in the Scripture, more qualified to teach or judge matters or affairs, to have a greater right to hold positions of responsibility than others. Whether it be so or not, those that will be called by the Lord to responsible tasks, to victories and thus also to the Kingdom are, and shall be, those, which in their own eyes are convinced that in them­selves they are unprofitable and unworthy in their own conscience (Is. 66:2/ Lk. 17:10).

Another key for our calling by the Lord is so called “secret judgment”, which the Lord is do­­ing for the purpose of sifting of His servants. The Lord usually stirs up difficulties, prob­lems, conflicts, creates “unsolvable” situations, brings us to things and solutions infinitely difficult and that in various situations at home, in office, market, workplace, wherever the Lord placed us. And then His eyes focused on us to see what will happen. While in these places everything goes easily and smoothly, the Lord is not getting decisive answers for His plans and purposes with us. Why? Because anyone could go and be useful when he has no problems or difficulties. The Lord must have such, whom He observed “in secret”, took into consideration his character and reactions during such “secret tests” of conflicts, problems, difficulties, in a secret judgment of their deeds and results. Whenever we go in the morning to our work, wherever our workplace may be, we may find difficulties of our tasks, we may meet people that are unpleasant, unskillful, clumsy, awkward, proud, arro­gant, untrustworthy or unbelieving… and God may definitely have His fingers in it. His eye may be upon us. God has a desire in His heart to find a useful instrument with respect to the spiritual situation of His people. He will not pull us out of those difficult situations or complicated tasks and will not put into our hands any responsibility or tasks for His work until He approved us by His “secret cadre judgment” (Gal. 1:10/ Job 2:10).

The angel told Gideon: “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor” (Judg. 6:12). This was surely in the direct opposition to what Gideon said and believed in his own heart (Judg. 6:15b). That’s why the statement of the angel DID NOT MEAN for Gideon to be out in the field leading a great army to a war! In the eyes of God it meant a spiritual and moral triumph and valor in His secret testing and judging of Gideon.

3) From the above paragraphs we may see or feel that the Lord never looks upon us and never judges us according to our outer appearance, how man looks on and judges, but according to our inside. The Lord looks at our heart (1Sam. 16:7) and judges its thoughts and intentions (Heb. 4:12). The most important thing in our heart that the Lord seeks and focuses on is TRUTH. The Lord declared about Himself: “I am the truth” (Jn. 14:6), thus, the Truth is a Person. Our Heavenly Father desires to have people, which will be the participants of God‘s Character, God’s Nature. Our Father is concentrating on His main Purpose and Goal that what is true in Him and in His Son, would be true in His children. All untruth is to God ugliness, obscenity, evil, therefore, all liars are by God destined to the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8). It is also written that nothing and nobody will enter into the New Jerusalem, who produces lies, falsehood and deception (Rev. 22:14,15).

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To be continued next week

brother Hanola

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