Christian Living

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“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. 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?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ –Matthew 7:21-23

Imagine if someone came a knocked on your door and claimed to know you and be your best friend. You’d maybe talked to the guy once or twice, mainly when he needed something but beyond that you really have no relationship with him. But here’s the kicker, he came to your door expecting you to invite him in to live with you and your family. You’d think the guy was crazy am I right?
I know the above scenario seems pretty far-fetched but believe it or not this happens every day. How many of us, who claim to be Christians (ie: friends of Christ) but never actually pray and talk to him? How many of us never actually open our bible to hear the words of such a great “friend”. We tend to make God more of a facebook friend than someone we actually have a relationship with. You know, those “friends” with whom we never talk. We might occasionally like a status update but we never take actual time to put any effort into our relationship with them. That’s us with God. We may go to Church on Sunday, and we may once or twice like something the pastor says but how often do we actually have a conversation with him? How often do we not just ask God for things, but, instead, genuinely thank him for being there for us? How often do we just shut up and wait for God to speak? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess, not very often at all.
Now think about this, beyond an occasional prayer and maybe sometimes listening to a sermon on Sunday mornings, there’s no friendship, there’s no relationship with God. Yet we still want to be able to live in heaven (God’s home) when we die. You really think he’s going to invite someone he barely has any relationship at all to come in and live with him and his family? The bible even says no! Matthew 7:21-23 makes that pretty clear. Not everyone who claims to know God, not everyone who claims to love God will be able to spend eternity with him. Why? Because while we were too busy putting on a show of being a Christian, we’ve neglected the one thing which makes us so! The relationship with God.
I don’t care how “good” of a person I think I am. I could give millions of dollars to churches and to the poor, and I could lay down my life for someone, but if I don’t have a relationship with God he’d still say to me when I stood before him, “I never knew you!”
So how do you have a relationship with God? It’s quite simple! How do you build any relationship? Communication. Talking with God. Not just praying and asking him for things but talking with him about whatever. The Bible says to pray without ceasing. That means to pray when you’re happy. Tell God about your day. Thank him for all the good things that happened. Pray when you’re sad. Tell God that you’re hurting. Tell him that you need him. Ask him to be with you. Pray when you’re in need. Ask God to provide what you need. Pray when you are in abundance. Thank God for providing and ask him to show you whom to bless if he wants you to. Talk to God without stopping!
But communication is a two way street. We can’t build a relationship on us just blabbing all the time. We need to listen too. How? Simple, read the word of God. He spent 3000 years writing a letter to us and we barely ever open it to read it. Simply open up the bible and read what God has done. Read what God has to say. Listen to God! God has called preachers to give his messages to us as well. Go to church, listen to the sermons… Really listen to the sermons. Remember that the sermon isn’t just for the person two seats down from you, but it’s for you too. God want’s to speak to you too.
I’ll be honest though. I am tired of hearing pastors preach that if you pray the sinner’s prayer you’ll go to heaven. The bible doesn’t say that at all. The bible says that if you repent of your sins, and believe in your heart that Jesus is God and that he came to die and save you from your sins then you will be saved. But simply praying a prayer isn’t doing that. Repentance comes from the heart. Repentance is not only saying “I’ve done wrong” but also changing and not doing that wrong thing again. And if all of us “Christians” truly believed that Jesus came and died for us to be free from our sins, I’m fairly certain that we’d want to thank him more. We’d want to read his word more. We’d HUNGER for that relationship with him to grow deeper. So I want to leave you with this. What will Jesus say to you when you stand before him? Will he say “Welcome home my friend!”? Or will he look at you like your crazy and say, “I never knew you!”?
What sort of RELATIONSHIP do you have with Jesus?

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