One of the sad and eye opening portions of Scripture is found at the end of Jesus Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”
Oh, how many people are sadly deceived in the world today, thinking they have a relationship with Jesus Christ, when by watching their lives, they prove otherwise. Note how Jesus clarifies “the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Not the one who justifies his disobedience and argues that it’s not important how we live while in this world. One key word to notice in this passage is the word “many”. Jesus said “On that day MANY will say to me…” That doesn’t just mean a small group of people. That is the greek word, πολλοί, which is the same word found in other portions of Scripture such as “And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.” (Matthew 4:25) and means a great multitude of people.
Jesus plainly said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) The Apostle John warned us, “… If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15) If we find ourselves too drawn to this world and too quickly willing to disobey God’s Word, we need urgently to test our faith in Jesus Christ – is it for real? Or are we just following the crowd around us blindly headed down the path that leads to destruction?
Paul reminded us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” Because when we stand before God one day – it will be TOO LATE if we find out our faith in God wasn’t genuine.
Obviously, we all sin and give in to the flesh, but when our daily desire is not to please and honor God, when we have no burning desire to know Him more and obey His commandments, something is seriously wrong! And when we can feel just as much at home partying with the world around us as we can at a Church, that says a lot about us! Do we TRULY know Him? Can we say with the hymn writer, “All that thrills my soul is Jesus, He is more than life to me…”? It matters!