Two common mistakes made by many professing believers today is taking a single scripture or two out of context, and then placing all their ‘theological eggs’ into that one ‘basket of belief’... which can lead to flimsy man-made doctrines.

This is usually done at the expense of dismissing the rest of God’s word/commandments; which dovetails into the second mistake, and that is where we come across those handful of verses that don’t ‘fit’ into our basket of beliefs; so we toss them out or lay them aside. Jesus pointed out how the Pharisees had a habit of doing that in Mark 7:1-13.

So when you hear me or others quote Matt. 7:21 on a regular basis, it leads to that second most important question that we believers need to be asking ourselves. The verse, of course contains the statement made by Jesus where He assures us that “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of the Father in heaven.”

And that second question we need to be asking: “What is...the will of the Father (God)?”

Many people today have carelessly made John 3:16 their ‘ride or die Bible verse’ to live by, and are convinced all is well with their soul because they ‘believe’. If God was fine with that, then why not just send us His ‘business card’ with that one statement printed on it; it sure would have saved a lot of ink and trees needed to print Bibles. And think of all the debates and arguments and factions and divisions that could have been avoided. But He didn’t’, and there is a lot more recorded on those pages that we would do well to go back and re-examine.

“Therefore do not be foolish and thoughtless, but understand and firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is.” (Eph. 5:17- Amp.) [and then do it]

Can I offer up some helpful reminders?

It is the will of God for us to ‘repent’ (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3,5)

It is the will of God for us to ‘keep His commandments’. (John 14:15; Rom. 2:13; 1 Cor. 7:19; Rev. 22:14; Ecc.12:13; John 2:5; Acts 3:22-23; Matt. 19:17)

It is the will of God for us to be ‘holy as He is holy’. (1 Pet. J1:14-16)

It is the will of God for us to ‘go and sin no more’. (John 5:14; 8:11)

It is the will of God for us to ‘be perfect/complete as He is perfect/complete’. (Matt. 5:48)

It is the will of God for us to ‘walk in the light as He is in the light (Eph. 5:8; 1 John 3:7)

It is the will of God for us to ‘lay aside every weight and sin that so easily entangles us’ (Heb. 12:1)

It is the will of God to ‘cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God’ (2 Cor. 7:1), with the added warning that ‘without holiness, no one will see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14).

It is the will of God for us to love Him with all our heart and soul. (Luke 10:25-28; Matt. 22:36-40)

It is the will of God for us to love one another as He first loved us. (John13:34-35; 15:12

It is the will of God for us to ‘take up our cross and die to self as we follow Jesus’ (Luke 14:25-33; 9:23).

It is the will of God for us to be led by His Spirit where we can ‘put to death all the deeds of the flesh’ (Rom. 8:13-14; Gal. 5:21,24). (which is the ONLY way we will ever be able to keep His commandments- John 12:24)

It is the will of God for us to be ‘conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus, that we might ‘walk as He walked’ (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 2:3-6)

It is the will of God for us to ‘abide in Him’ ...bearing much fruit showing ourselves to be His disciples (John 15:1-8).

Should I go on...or maybe stop here and allow us all to ‘catch our breath’ and mutter something to the effect...”Well I guess I never looked at it that way before.”

You probably have heard the passage in Matt. 25 tossed around quite a bit recently, citing those ‘red letters of Jesus’ about ‘feeding the hungry and clothing the naked’ (31-46), and how if/when we did it to the ‘least of them, we did it to Jesus’. Friends...these can be very good things to ‘do’, but may I remind you with another portion of text from 1 Cor. 13:1-3 that we can be busy ‘doing’ such things...and yet it ‘profit us nothing’...if we don’t have the ‘God kind of love’ as described there in vs. 4-8. What do you think those folks in Matt. 7:22-23 found out...too late?

So where does ‘faith and grace’ come into play, since it is ‘only by grace through faith’ that any of us are ‘saved’? (Eph.2:8-9). That is another great question...and we can look further into that...tomorrow, Lord willing.

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