This post is an added thought that came out of the teaching of the last post. I have been thinking about this allot. There is a passage of scripture in the bible found in Matthew 7:21, that has always puzzled me and disturbed me at the same time. I finally think I understand it as a result of the teaching " Sex And The City Of God".
The scripture says: " Not everyone who says to me " Lord,Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he 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 perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, " I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!"
When the bible uses the word "know", God is using that sexual language to describe the type of intimacy we need to have with him in order to "know" him and to do his will. In the passage above he was speaking to people who thought they were Christians because of what they did, yet the Lord said, " I never knew you". It is a bit scary to think we can go through our whole Christian life thinking we are serving God and doing his will when in fact we could be rejected by him on judgement day because we just didn't get it. Just saying the words " Lord, Lord" in other words " I believe in you" obviously is not enough. The bible says even the demons believe, yet are they going to heaven? NO! Even Satan believes God exists, yet he hates God. Is he going to heaven? NO!
So, what does it take to get to heaven? We must "know" God in an intimate way so we are able to "know" what his will is and do that!
If that is not the focus of your ministry, then I would suggest you re-evaluate your motives. I believe everything else will come out of that relationship with the Lord. Follow Jesus, and all the other things will follow you.
I have mine and that is now going to be my focus; getting to "know" God.
I want to hear those words from Jesus: " Well done good and faithful servant!".
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4 comments:
Good post. I agree. I also agree that it's scary. It really is easy to acknowledge God in an intellectual way and not give yourself to Him in a personal way. The word also says: " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin ". I think it's at that point when we come to " know " Him.
There is allot to this teaching that is hard to include in a short blog. PJ added much more detail and even went into how to "know" God and how to tell if you don't. This blog was an after thought on my part and I didn't take many notes. Writing it down helps me to remember it. I'm going to take more notes next week and continue this summary and hope some people get interested in listening to it live. This really does have life changing revelation in it.
nice to have you back in bloggie-world, doug! sounds like there is some really great stuff happening in your church - cool!
Yes Patti. Really good teaching series. I got some good practise blogging sermons from CF!
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