Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father remind us again of our need to offer up our whole lives as a living sacrifice to him. Father, it is so easy to do a few religious things and live by our own will. Help us to deny ourselves and seek you out. You have come to find us and yet also hide yourself, longing for us to come and find you. Help us to desperately and daily seek your face, your will, your way. Know us, Father. In the name of Jesus know us and be known in us.
Your Morning Song: "Hello My Name Is" by Matthew West
Your Morning Scripture: Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one 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 in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
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I heard this image given once, and it has stuck with me over the years. It isn't about who you know, it's about who knows you. If you go to the White House, and you say, "let me in! I know the president!" they will not let you in. And as they haul you away, likely to be interrogated, a voice cries out, "wait!"
And then president comes out and says, "it's okay. I know him." Then, and only then, are you getting into the White House.
The implication of Jesus's words above is that he will know us if we do the Father's will. And if we do religious things, but not according to the Father's will but our own, then Jesus says that he will not know us.
We the church are plagued by this problem. Almost all of the Christian rituals and habits and actions can be done insincerely, without any care for what God wants. And so easily.
Some are faking the Christian walk, being religiously as lazy as respectability allows. No sincere faith. No submission of self to our Heavenly Father's will. No hope beyond, "I hope I did enough good things and gave enough money to get into Heaven. Oh well, God loves me so I'm sure it will work out."
Some of us are not faking our walk. We're really, actually doing it. Sure, it is messy and full of mistakes and missteps. But we sincerely have submitted our whole selves to the will of our Father in Heaven.
Where are you in all of this? Where is your family? Where are you friends? Easy enough for us to honestly answer that we have the blessed assurance that our Father knows us. But what about those we love?
May our lives be humble, obedient sacrifices to our Father in Heaven. That those who do not know and are not known by his son might see our sacrifice of self to God and come to know and be known by him.
It isn't about what you do. It isn't about who you know. It's about what Jesus has done and whether or not he knows you.
