21“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. 22On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name? ’ 23Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’ Matthew 7: 21-23 HCSB
Well let me just say at the beginning that some of you may get mad and not like what I am saying in this article. Just remember that what I say is out of love and concern for your eternal destination. I have found that in my time as a follower of Christ that there are many fake Christians. Understand what I mean by that. You see if you just watch their outside actions you might even buy into the idea that they are a follower of Christ. The thing to remember is that the outside doesn’t always tell what the book is about. I found that many people sit in church and really don’t know why they are sitting there. Grandma and Grandpa sat here and mom and dad brought us as kids. You see they can’t answer the most important question. Let me ask you right now. If you died after reading this article and was standing in the doorway of Heaven looking through the door and Jesus was standing on the other side asking you why He should let you in, What would you say? Well what would you say? The sad thing is there are some of you sitting there that are firing away the same answers I hear on the streets. Let me see if I can guess any of them. I am a good person, I go to church, I walked the aisle, I got baptized, I am a member at so and so. Did I get any of them right? You see all of those things are good things in and of themselves. But not one of them will get Jesus to open the door for you. What they will do is cause Him to repeat the words of Matthew 7: 23 to you. You see sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christian; no more than sitting in the garage makes you a Buick. Nor does getting baptized save you, because if you weren’t saved prior to it; all you did was get wet. I guess what I am saying is make sure that you can remember a time when you surrendered your life over to Jesus and began a personal relationship with Him. You see the only thing that will get you into Heaven is to accept what Jesus has done for you upon the cross. God made a way for us because He knew we could not do it ourselves. Why take the chance? You can either hear Jesus say welcome home or you can hear Him say depart from Me, it is up to you.
9If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.10One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.11Now the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shame, 12for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. 13For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10: 9-13 HCSB
Thoughts from Pastor Toney 