PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Luke 13:22-27
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me you evildoers!” (Luke 13:27)
Jesus is asked about how many or few will be saved.
He shifts the focus to the man who asks: ‘you make sure you are saved!’
Apparently many think they’re saved, but Jesus does not know them that way.
The clue to this mystery is where he describes them as evildoers (v.27).
Their cruel and selfish lives show that they really don’t know him.
Salvation is, and always has been, by grace alone.
But God’s grace gives us what we need to try and to grow (2 Peter 1:3-11).
The question is, am I making any effort toward being like Jesus?
Is there any indication by my lifestyle that I WANT to do be a good-doer?
Knowing Jesus leads to showing Jesus, and this is what Jesus wants for us!
He has offered to help us produce good fruit with his Spirit in us.
We need to ‘make every effort’ (2 Peter 1:3-11) to grow in our faith.
If we do not, we show we don’t care, that we don’t really know him.
If he says ‘I never knew you’, it is because we were not working with him.
PRAYER
Lord, you know both the strength and weakness of my desire to live with, like and for you. I admit I have a long way to grow, but I really do want to know and show you better.
A narrow path to a narrow door – Lord I’m reminded to walk the harder path, that the wide door is not the door I am looking to enter into. Thank you for holding the door for us through your son Jesus Christ
To truly know Jesus – not just as a holy man or as an important historical person who lived over 2000 years ago – but to know Jesus – to experience the gift of the Spirit working in and through you – is the source of confidence and strength in bearing witness. But I need to listen and submit – squashing my own desires and will – so that I am ready to follow the spirit’s leading.
Jesus is the narrow door. Those who enter through it will be saved. I need to follow the way of Jesus in the way of the cross. Daily I need to do His will and He has given His presence to encourage me along the Way. Today as in any other day, Jesus needs to be first.
1 God himself is with us:
let us now adore him,
and with awe appear before him.
God is in his temple–
all within keep silence,
prostrate lie with deepest rev’rence.
Him alone
God we own,
him, our God and Savior;
praise his name forever.
2 God himself is with us:
hear the harps resounding!
See the crowds the throne surrounding!
“Holy, holy, holy”–
hear the hymn ascending,
angels, saints, their voices blending!
Bow thine ear
to us here:
hear, O Christ, the praises
that thy church now raises.
3 O thou fount of blessing,
purify my spirit;
trusting only in thy merit,
like the holy angels
who behold thy glory,
may I ceaselessly adore thee,
and in all,
great and small,
seek to do most nearly
what thou lovest dearly.