Surprised at Judgment Day- Matthew 7:21-23

(Before you start reading, I need some help! Take a minute to think of suggestions for upcoming VOWs. What direction should the VOW take for 2014? Leave a comment below or shoot an email to fcocyg@gmail.com.)

Picture it this way.

Let's say that for whatever reason your name holds a lot of sway. Use your imagination...maybe you are filthy rich...maybe you are the most popular president both in the States and internationally that has ever been in the U.S....maybe you are a world-renowned athlete or actor/actress or singer or. It doesn't matter. Just have fun with it.

Got that in your mind?

Ok, now let's pretend that you have several children. Let's say that nothing negative really happens...they just start to drift away from you. There was not a defining confrontation that drove you apart, there was not a slight or an insult. They just quit returning your phone calls. They wouldn't answer your letters or your text messages. They blocked you on Facebook. And they certainly never came home. Basically, for whatever reason, they just didn't want anything to do with you personally.

However, while they never contacted you or asked for your input, they did continue to use the status of your name to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. Some of those things were even good things. They let everyone they came into contact with know that you were their father/mother. Why? Because it opened doors that might not otherwise be opened to them. It forced others to look at them with respect and pay attention to what they said. Yes, they used the name for many purposes...but no matter how hard you begged, they wouldn't come home or renew their relationship with you.

Now let's say that process began as soon as they were teenagers and carried on throughout their life. And let's say you live and abnormally long life. You remember them as children, but you know nothing about them personally as adults.

Picture sitting down to write your will at the end of your life. But let's make it complicated. Your children all know you are near death. And they all come calling when you are on your deathbed.

Would you write your children into your will knowing they never had a relationship with you? Knowing the only reason they didn't change their name was because yours was more convenient?

Of course this analogy breaks down in many, many spots. But do you get the point? Do we use God for His name and what it can accomplish- whether good or bad- but fail to pursue a relationship with Him?

It's interesting to me that the things claimed by those whom "Jesus never knew" were the big things done in his name. Casting out demons, working miracles, prophesying.

I wonder if the reason people will go to judgment falsely assured of salvation is because we think salvation is found in the "big things" and we fail to be obedient in the "little things." The things like loving enemies; obeying our parents; abstaining from gossip, slander, and lies; welcoming the stranger, orphan, and widow; breaking down the walls of division between us (race, social class, economic standing, cultural upbringing, etc.) in Christ.

Jesus said very plainly, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

No matter how many demons we cast out, prophesies we utter, miracles we perform, mission trips we go on, community service projects we participate in, or political rallies we organize in order to fight immorality in our country, if we are not obedient to his command to "love one another as [he] has loved [us]" (John 13:34), then we have not known him...and he has not known us.

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.... We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 3:11-24

May we all strive not to do more and better, but to love more and better. And may that guide us into even greater works as we do good works in Jesus' name.