Good morning,
Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord! ’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Matthew 7:21
One of the challenges that we face in trying to understand love is the kind of spin that sin puts on God’s perfect words. The constant challenge that we face here in America is the deeply rooted idea that everyone around us owes us something. Our sin nature tells us that our family and friends owe us respect and love no matter what kind of attitudes and decisions we make. Our present generation has also convinced us that our friends and even our enemies are required to accept our decisions and values as important and we must be respected for whatever beliefs we feel are right for us. Just this weekend leaders from all over the world have gathered in Paris to stand in solidarity with the people whose writers were killed for not respecting someone else's beliefs. The writers felt that they had the right to make fun of anyone they didn’t like or understand and the group that killed them felt that their religious convictions gave them the right to kill anyone who would dare to make fun of them and their leaders. Each group felt that they were entitled to love and hate anyone they chose to love and hate.
This same attitude of entitlement, you owe me, is often true for those of us who call ourselves Christians. The Bible clearly tells us that God loves the people he has created. Alas, the sinful attitude we can have toward God is that he owes us his love even if we don’t pay that much attention to what he says or thinks. How many of those who call themselves Christians look forward to spending time with their Savior on a daily basis? How many of us are concerned that our lives be directed by God’s Holy Spirit and that our decision making process is based on finding and doing God’s will each day of every week? It seems to me that many of the people that I have known over the years resent God’s direction and are afraid of the training process that each of us must go through in order to love and live like Jesus. Jesus made it very clear that just because someone calls Jesus their Lord doesn't mean that Jesus owes them a place in heaven. He tells us that only those who return his love by willingly doing his will, will be given a place in his heaven. Jesus does love his world and his people, but Jesus is also the judge who will decide whether we have genuinely loved him in return. Rebels who have tried to use God for their benefit will try to impress God with what they have said and done, but we already know what he will say. He will say, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ Dear Lord, please help us to see ourselves through your eyes and not our own.
Matthew 7:22 On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. ’ 23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.
Roy Wisner
