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)
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
It is like that with the Lord.
There are so many times in our lives that we insist upon doing our own will and think, somehow, that we will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of God. However, God sees all and knows all. There is no fooling God. Ever.
There are people in our world who think that they have a shoe in to heaven because they do good things. However, the reason that they do the things that they do is not to further God’s Kingdom or to embrace God’s law. They do not even do the good things they do because it is the right thing to do.
No. They do it for their own vain glory. They do it for praise. They do it for reward. And while they may receive all of those, none of them curry any favor with God.
If we do not do the things we do in this life for the Lord, we will be like those people who say, “Lord, Lord!” expecting to get in to heaven but being deprived of that eternal reward because we had already rewarded ourselves here on earth.
Therefore, it would behoove us to do the will of our Heavenly Father rather than our own will.
It may not be as glamorous. It may not bring us any earthly reward. It may even be costly, according to earth’s standards. However, it will be the right thing to do because we will be doing what the Lord bids.
That, in the final analysis, is all that truly matters.
FAITH ACTION: Ask the Lord for the grace that you will need to do His will today rather than insisting upon doing your own.