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“When,” says the apostle, “he abolishes all rule and all authority and power... The last enemy will be destroyed - death” (1 Cor. 15:24, 26). When all this is abolished, then there will be nothing sorrowful, no worries, no labors; everything will be joy, everything will be peace, everything will be love, everything will be calm, everything will be joyful, everything will be true, sincere and firm; then there will be no shortcomings, no anger, no sorrow, no covetousness, nor lust, nor poverty, nor wealth, nor dishonor, and nothing else like that. Let us also strive for this life and do everything for it. Therefore, in prayer we are commanded to say: “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10), so that we always imagine that day. He who is imbued with this love and is nourished by the hope of these blessings will not be crushed by any of the present disasters, will not be indignant. none of the sorrows here. Just as those going to the royal city are not delayed by anything on the way: neither meadows, nor gardens, nor abysses, nor deserts, but, not paying attention to all this, have only one thing in mind - the fatherland awaiting them, so the one who daily imagines the heavenly city and has love for it will not consider anything difficult to be difficult and nothing pleasant and glorious - pleasant and glorious (2). Do you want to see the Kingdom of God? Turn your eyes to heaven - and you will see six hundred Angels there, you will see a thousand Archangels, the upcoming Seraphim, Cherubim surrounding His fiery throne, you will see them all in reverence and awe. But here the leadership of God does not appear, thus, not only due to the weakness of nature and not because the difference between people and Angels is great, but also because people cannot glorify Him in the same way as those wondrous creatures do. If, when the king appears, the mob is seized with fear, then how much greater will be the fear of the supreme majesty. Just as if someone, coming to the royal palace, sees death and threats there and everyone performing their duties near the king, so there the forces of the Angels do the same. Moreover, there are very many things that keep the inhabitants of the earth away from such service. On the contrary, the Heavenly Powers do nothing else but always glorify God and contemplate Him, according to what is written: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). Christ Himself was served by Angels: “Behold, Angels came and served Him” (Matthew 4:11). Do not think that He only received slaughter and suffered many other things, but also remember that He said: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) (4). “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). What is this? Doesn't God now reign that His Kingdom is yet to come? Of course He is a king. But just as a city besieged by enemies asks for the royal army to come and liberate it, so we, being surrounded by opposing forces and our own sins and evil thoughts, ask for the Kingdom of God to come and bring us deliverance (9). People are not so much attracted by good deeds as they are admonished by fear. But wonderful and great men and friends of God do not need any of this. Such, for example, was Paul: he spoke neither of the Kingdom nor of Gehenna. This is what it means to love Christ - it means not to be a mercenary, not to look at [pious life] as a trade and trade, but to be truly virtuous and do everything out of love for God alone. How worthy are we of tears when such a great debt lies upon us, and we do not try, like merchants, to acquire the Kingdom of Heaven? So much has been promised to us, and yet we still don’t listen? What can such hostility be compared to? People possessed by an insane passion for money, no matter who they meet: whether enemies or slaves, or their most evil opponents, the most worthless people, if they only hope to get money through them, they decide to do anything, and flatter, and serve, and become slaves, and consider them the most respectable people, just to get something from them: the hope of getting money results in the fact that they do not think about anything like that. But the Kingdom does not have the same meaning for us as money does; or, better yet, does not have even an insignificant fraction of that meaning. Meanwhile, it was promised not by some ordinary person, but by One who is incomparably higher than the Kingdom itself. If the Kingdom is promised and God himself gives it, then, obviously, it already means a lot to receive it from such a Person. And now, meanwhile, the same thing happens as if we began to despise the king, who, after countless other good deeds, wants to make [us] his heirs and co-heirs of his own son; and they began to bow to the chief of the robbers, who was the cause of very many troubles both for us and for our parents, who himself was filled with countless evil and disgraced both our glory and our salvation, if he showed us at least one ovol (10). There are no words to describe the greatness of the difference between the future and the present, since due to time it is completely impossible for the mind to comprehend the entire difference. Indeed, how can life that has no end be compared with the present? And the world of the future life is as different from the world of this life as the world is from war, incorruption is as much superior to corruption as a pure pearl is better than a piece of dirt, and it is better - no matter what anyone says, not to fully depict this difference. If I compare the beauty of future bodies with the light of a sunbeam or with the brightest lightning, then I will not yet say anything worthy of that splendor. What earthly treasures, what bodies or, better yet, what souls should not be despised for the sake of the future? If someone now brought you into the royal palace, gave you the opportunity to speak with the king in the presence of everyone, even to be with him and eat food from the same table, then you, of course, would recognize yourself as the happiest of all. And intending to ascend to heaven, to appear before the very King of the universe, to compete in splendor with the Angels, to enjoy that ineffable glory, you still hesitate whether you should despise money, whereas, even if you were to lose your life itself, you should rejoice, rejoice, be inspired with delight. To obtain the position of a boss, which gives you reasons for theft (I cannot call this an honest profit), you give everything you have, borrow from others, and if necessary, you will not regret mortgaging your wife and children, and when you are faced with the Kingdom of Heaven, such power in which you will not have a successor, when God Himself entrusts you with the management not of a corner of the earth, but of the whole sky, you hesitate and refuse, you spare money and do not Do you understand that if the side of the sky we see is so beautiful and attractive, then how much more excellent is its highest part and the sky of heaven (11)? You might be interested in: