“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21 Notice that he is speaking to religious people here. No one else would be calling him "Lord, Lord." vs 22: “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?’” These are religious people who are prophesying and casting out demons, and working wonders. So why on earth would the Lord go so far as to say that they will not enter his Kingdom? What are they doing wrong? Think televangelists. Think pastors of mega-churches. Think those who are seemingly doing signs and wonders before the people, to draw the crowds ...TO THEMSELVES. Think money, think fame. Think lavish homes, jet planes, and thousands of people sitting in their services hearing a message encouraging them to think positive and have their best lives now. Jesus answers this way: vs 23: “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you;'” He never knew them. They have had no encounter with him. They are not born again. They are doing their own will, not the will of the Father. Who, then, are they who the Lord does know? It is those who have recognized their pitiful state, those who are only too aware of their falleness and who have come broken before the Lord in repentance, surrendering their lives to him. Those who are willing to take up their cross, not their jet plane, and follow him. Those who would be martyred for him, as every one of the apostles of Jesus Christ were. These are they whom the Lord receives and brings into his Kingdom. There will be no one there who has not fallen on their knees in repentance before him. It all comes down to the state of the heart. Those who are putting on a show in order to fill the pews are not going to be found in the Kingdom of heaven. They draw people with false prophecy and the many will hungrily fall for that. Having “itching ears,” the crowds flock to places where they might get "a personal word" from these charlatans who will perform on cue. These manicured professionals make a show, knowing it will bring the people and the dollars. These are they who defile the sanctuary with music from hell, which is identical to what you’d hear in a bar room, not humbling the people in reverence but stirring them up in the flesh. They might have sound effects, smoke, flashing lights, all manner of entertainment. These will not be found in the Kingdom of heaven. The sanctuary where people assemble is not to be a place of entertainment. When it becomes entertainment, the Spirit of God will leave. He will let these rake in the money and the following, but HE will not be there. Those who WILL be received into the Kingdom of God are those who live in repentance, seeking only to do the will of the Father. They will not be entertainers, God forbid. Their message will be, “come broken before the Lord, pick up your cross, and follow him.” They have no interest in the money and the following. Their only care is to do the will of the Father. And sometimes the Father will lead them into places that are not comfortable to the flesh. But even then, the joy of their lives is doing the will of the Father, growing in the knowledge of him through daily TIME SPENT WITH HIM, in prayer and in daily reading in his Word with all the heart. These are those who will hear the voice of the Lord and obey whatever he says to them. It’s all about God, not about themselves. These will be passionate, because in the born-again experience they’ve learned how desperate are the times and how close to hell are the people, and all they think about is allowing God to use them to reach out to the lost. These are they who will be found in the Kingdom of heaven. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Matthew 16:24-26 Come to the Lord in heartfelt repentance, surrender your life to him and he will receive you and begin a work in you that will transform you. It will become the joy of your heart and your only regret will be not having come sooner.
"...when they saw that the Gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, (Paul) as the Gospel for the circumcised was to Peter, for he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles..." Galatians 2:7-8 Peter was not the first "pope.' That is a fabrication of the Roman Catholic church. This passage in Galatians clearly states that PAUL was given the ministry to the "uncircumcised," which means to those who are not Jews. Peter was actually given the ministry to the "circumcised," which means the Jews. Peter was not a Jewish pope. The papacy is one of many, VERY many false doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. Catholicism has enslaved millions upon millions teaching them that the way of salvation is submission to the teachings of the Catholic church. It's the teaching of "works," which the book of Galatians clearly refutes. Doing good or being "good" is NOT the way of salvation. In fact, it's the very opposite - the way of salvation is in the acknowledging of one's INABILITY to not sin, the acknowledging that one is NOT "good." Only when a person comes to these conclusions can he then find the true way of salvation and that is through the atonement God provided in his Son when he hung on a cross in our place bearing the judgment on our sins in himself. Having graduated from a Catholic high school after 12 years of Catholic indoctrination, I probably knew as much about the Catholic church's teachings as the pope did. But in all those years, I did not learn why Jesus Christ died on that cross. The Catechism told us he died "to open the gates of heaven." Well what on earth does that mean? And more ...what does it mean for me? It meant nothing because all I could picture was the closed gates of heaven being opened. Does that mean everyone can now enter heaven? No, they taught, you can't get to heaven outside the Catholic Church and following its doctrines. I tried to do that and hated myself because I failed miserably, over and over and over again. And the accumulated doctrines they taught me led me to utter despondency, because it was impossible to me to follow them. Then the Lord sent two people, a man and his wife, into my life. I was a shattered soul, and they put a Bible in my hands - which would set me free. Not that it was easy, it was a very difficult and painful way because upon reading the Word of God for the first time, I realized that MOST of the doctrines of the Catholic system CONTRADICT the Word of God. This was a shock to me, an absolute shock. I could hardly believe what I was reading. No wonder Catholic indoctrination told us NOT to read the Bible. They said it was too hard for us to understand, and that there was a specific order of priests, the Jesuits, whose purpose was to interpret it for us. And we bought that, hook, line, and sinker. It took a few YEARS for me to unlearn the false doctrines I had once held dear, and to understand what the Word of God really said. To leave the Roman Catholic church which all my extended family belonged to was a very costly decision for me. But after reading the Bible, I knew I could not be a part of a system of lies, lies diametrically opposed to the truth found in the Word of God. Jesus reveals himself to his people in many ways. To me, he revealed himself as "the Truth" (John 14:6). Love for truth became the driving force in my life. And that meant that I had to "come out of her" (Revelation 18:4). And so I did. At a great cost, because my family was appalled that I should leave the "mother church." No amount of debate could convince them of what I now had to say. I had to leave them as they were, and bear the cost of their anger because I was bid to leave by the very Lord who came to me on the day I was "born again." If you are a member of any church whose doctrines are based on some "holy" book other than or in addition to the Word of God, have the courage to question it, have the courage to go to the Lord in humility and ASK him whether the doctrines you believe are true, then get on your knees and seek the Lord to know if he would bid you to leave it. And know that leaving it will cost you. A decision will have to be made: whether to stay with the lies because of the cost in leaving, or to leave knowing that THE TRUTH is the most important thing in life. “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:37-39
I found it. Will you?
“BLESSED are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 The Lord constantly urges us to see things from a heavenly perspective and not from the world’s way of looking at things. When first reading this, it’s hard to grasp that when people are talking about you behind your back, when they mock you and persecute you, the response Jesus said to have is to “rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” Can you imagine a world in which people respond with rejoicing when they’ve been maliciously gossiped about behind their backs? To be exceedingly glad??? No, the response we most often see instead is a harsh comeback and self-justification. That is the human reaction, the reaction of our fallen human nature, the nature we were born with. What Jesus is saying is that we are to rise above our fleshly nature and see things from HIS perspective. Jesus said that when people speak about you, gossip about you, lie about you, or accuse you falsely …then stop and realize that every such act is noticed by heaven and your reward - if you handle it correctly - will be something truly great in heaven for all eternity. In fact, it will be so great that the Lord says to be EXCEEDINGLY glad. It must be something far beyond our present ability to imagine. Truly, if we knew, if we truly understood this – we’d actually hope for more persecution! Such would we value the reward. This is the paradox of seeing things from God’s perspective. One day the Lord spoke to me in my prayer time, “How do you define wisdom?” I sat there and thought on it, mulled it over, and couldn’t come up with a right answer. So I asked him, “how DO you define wisdom?” He answered, “Wisdom is the ability to see a thing from God’s perspective.” Friends, do not think that your suffering is wasted, for surely it is not. The Lord sees every tear and records it. But he counsels you to rejoice instead of reacting in the flesh. Spend time before him asking him to show you HOW to be able to rejoice when you’re being laughed at, or when you’re being rejected. It’s not something one can do in his own human nature, human nature so obviously doesn’t work that way. One cannot imagine a friend coming to our door excited with glee and anxious to tell the joyful news that he has been gossiped about or falsely accused! There is no way that is going to come forth from human nature. When the Lord calls us to overcome, it follows that he is the only one who can make it happen. He is the giver of life, and he is the author of our spiritual growth. He will always be calling us higher, bidding us to rise above our worldly circumstances and desiring us to see things from his perspective. When we become able to do that, THEN we will be able to "rejoice and be exceedingly glad." Pray with me: Father, sometimes the things you say are so contrary to our human nature that it leaves us perplexed, knowing we absolutely cannot be or do as you say. There’s only one remedy to that, and that is the new life you breathe into us, enabling us to rise above the fleshly and to live in the spiritual. Father, I was born into this fallen human nature, and there’s no fallen way a fallen person can be anything different – until …you raise me up in a new perspective. I surrender to you all the fallenness that dwells within me, all my emotions, all my judgments, all my reasonings, and I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit and enable me to begin seeing everything from your perspective. You are the only one who can make this happen, and all I can do is surrender to you and invite you into every situation I find myself in. Let me know what it is to react in the Spirit and to see the flesh be overcome. In the name of Jesus I ask this.