Not By Appearance Shall He Judge

4 Dec

Jesus said to his disciples:
“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 in heaven.”  (Mt 7:21)

We are often an “appearance” kind of people.  We give more credibility to someone who is dressed in fine clothes, who speaks eloquently, who, for all intents and purposes, portrays a “proper” kind of person.  The person may be far from proper, far from good, far from holy; however, if the person looks all right, we tend to be swayed by that person.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus realized that there were many people in his time who looked all right but who were leading His people astray.  They may have even deluded themselves that they were going to inherit all the promises of the prophets of old.

That was just a delusion, though.  The truth of the matter is that they were much farther from the Kingdom than they possibly could have imagined.

Jesus does not judge by appearances.  Jesus judges the heart.  If we do good things for people because we are trying to “buy” our way into heaven but inside we are filled with sin, we do not stand a chance.  If, on the other hand, we do good things for others out of the goodness of our hearts and in a true desire to serve Jesus in His people, we are going to be all right.

Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas.

It does not do us any good to prepare all the externals — cards written, homes cleaned, presents purchased, goodies baked — if we ignore the internal, our souls.

Cry out, “Lord, Lord” today and mean it.  Let the Lord know that you love Him, that you desire Him, that you long to be with Him.  Ask Him to give you all that you need, truly, to prepare for His coming both in the celebration of his birth at Christmas as well as when He comes again.

FAITH ACTION:  Have you been doing good for others halfheartedly?  Give yourself more completely to the Lord, and His people, today.