““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matthew 7:21-23 NIV
We are working through the Sermon on the Mount, and today, we will discuss the verses that strike more fear in my heart than any other. Here is the link to the previous posts in this series:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
We face verses like these as we work through our faith in Jesus. I don’t know about you, but these verses make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In today’s post, I will go into my testimony and share some compelling examples from the Bible that will hopefully illustrate the difference.
When I was young, my grandmother was faithful in introducing the Gospel, giving me my first Bible when I was eight. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I knew this was very important in my head, and the words in that book had Divine power.
I remember the warmth of the sunlight coming through the window in the living room as I was lying on the rug reading this Bible, excited about the stories I was reading. It was a special feeling.
As far back as I remember, my mom was good at ensuring we went to church every week.
I remember saying the Lord’s Prayer every night before bed.
As I grew up, this is what I thought it was to be a Christian. I knew we were called to be kind to each other, but years later, God’s grace revealed that my heart was not right before God.
I can look back and say that I don’t feel I had a hard life. God saw to it that I knew where my next meal came from every day.
My parents got divorced when I was 12. I didn’t have much contact with my dad after that. I look back now and think about what I used to consider as bad in my life as being part of God’s grace. Who knows what would have happened if he were around? This is not a knock on my dad; I love my relationship with him now. Anyways…
So my life went on from there, a lot of confusion. There was no glorifying God with anything I did with my life. I started working and making money. I started to get into personal development.
I got married and had two wonderful children. I got divorced. I met the woman who is now my wife, Tracy.
I continued working and immersed myself in more of the personal development.
My goal of making a lot of money wasn’t happening, but I continued to support my family the best I could. I was existing.
I would pick up the Bible every once in a while and would read it. And then I would put it down. I would pick up the Bible again and then put it down again. I started to see a pattern when reading God’s Word; my life would start to smooth out, and things seemed to go well. But I would never develop the habit of daily Bible reading.
After a couple of jobs not working out, I thought that if I kept reading the Bible, my life would smooth out, and things would go well. So, from that day until now, I have read from the Bible. And life was nothing but rainbows ever since, right?
No, as I started to read the Bible every day, not only did my life not get smooth, but things got worse financially, relationally, career-wise, and so on. It got so bad that I got to a point where I no longer wanted to live. I had reached the end.
And that is where Jesus met me on “my” Damascus Road.
I was prompted to reach out for help. I called my dad, and his wife suggested that I look into Celebrate Recovery, A Christ-centered recovery program that was a church that I had attended off and on for the last couple of years to this point.
So, I started to go to that program. As I pressed forward, the Lord put it on my heart to turn my life over to Him, and I never looked back. After 47 years, 39 years after my grandmother gave me my first Bible, I felt my heart was finally right with God.
I no longer went to church as an obligation; I went because I wanted to go. I no longer gave to the church out of duty but to help expand God’s Kingdom.
He changed me at the heart level. My heart changed.
If you ask now, “John if you died before that heart change happened in your life, would you have gone to heaven?” Now, I would say I don’t think so. I would have been told, “I never knew you.”
Before this shift happened in my heart, it was about what I was doing to get there and not what Jesus did for me to reconcile with God. And I can only be reconciled to God through Jesus.
My mindset before this shift in my heart was that my Bible reading would bring out a smooth life, a better life, and an understanding that my life is better not because of what I am doing but because of what Jesus is doing in my heart.
Let’s look at another example of one who would have appeared to have a conversion but came up short:
“Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.” After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.”
Acts 8:9-25 NIV
When we look at Simon, he was taken by the power of the Apostle’s ability and wanted that power for himself. He even went as far as offering money for the power to lay hands for others to receive the Holy Spirit. Peter called him out, saying, “For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
Isn’t that just like us when we see that others have an ability that we do not? We may even go as far as to say to ourselves, “Good for them; I wish I could do that too.” There is a form of bitterness and jealousy in that sort of reaction.
There is only one person we should be comparing ourselves to: the person of Jesus Christ. A standard we will only reach once He comes to take us home.
This keeps us pressing forward to that standard. When we compare ourselves to those around us, one of two things happen:
- We look at those who are better than us at something and think to ourselves we will never be able to get there, so we give up and stop.
- Or we look at those who we are better at some things, and we’re better than them, and stop growing.
But when we look at Jesus as the perfect standard, we always have something to press towards.
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14 NLT
“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. And after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 NLT
Heavenly Father, I am grateful for Your grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
I am thankful for the sacrifice that You made on our behalf. I pray for those who read this that You give them the faith to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
I pray that You allow me to grow more and more like Jesus and that others can see Jesus centered in my actions, thoughts, and attitudes.
In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, Amen!!
