The Narrow Gate

"The door to heaven is narrow. Work hard to get in, because many will try to enter, but when the head of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. Then you will stand outside knocking and pleading, `Lord, open the door for us!' But he will reply, `I do not know you.' You will say, `But we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' And he will reply, `I tell you, I don't know you. Go away, all you who do evil.'
"And there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth, for you will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets within the Kingdom of God, but you will be thrown out. Then people will come from all over the world to take their places in the Kingdom of God. And note this: Some who are despised now will be greatly honored then; and some who are greatly honored now will be despised then."(Luke 13:24-30)
Matthew 7:21-23 talks about those who did miracles in Jesus' name. We believe Christianity is widespread and growing? Well, the gate is narrow. It isn't enough to prophesy and do miracles in Jesus name. It isn't enough to "eat and drink" with Him. The gate is narrow.
To God, love is the most important aspect, as laid out in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. And Jesus tells us in John 14:21 who it is that truly loves the Lord: "He who has my commandments and keeps them." Again, in John 15:14: "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you." So love is obedience. But according to the 3 passages I brought up originally, obedience is not necessarily love. It's like a child grudgingly obeying his parents, not because he wants to, but because he knows he is supposed to.
This is the truth of the matter: You can sit in the presence of God, get filled, go out and preach, teach, prophesy and do miracles, all in the name of Jesus, and still miss heaven. You can be used by God in miraculous ways and shape history, and still miss heaven. God can use people He doesn't know. But if God does not know you, and if you don't know God, you're not making it to heaven. Many people are going to miss it, and not by much.
So how do you live so you won't miss the mark? What can you do to find your way through the narrow gate? That is what I will be discussing from here on out - raw Christianity. Having an intimate relationship with Christ. Stay with me. You may learn something.

True Worship

"Away with your hymns of praise! They are only noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry." (Amos 5:23-24) God does not want our music. He does not want our slow songs with our hands raised and our tears. When we think of Praise and Worship, we think of going to church and singing. That is not what worship is. Worship is a lifestyle. When Abraham said in Genesis 22:5 "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship," he was not talking about singing a slow song. The word worship means obedience. He was going to sacrifice his one and only son, the son promised by God, but now that God was asking Abraham to sacrifice him, he would obey. That is what he meant when he said worship - he wasn't lying to anyone. So to define worship, worhip is a life of obedience. Another part of worship is the fact that our hearts have to be in it. We have to want to obey, we can't just simply obey because we're supposed to and then expect great things from God. This is what is called being submissive. The difference between obedient and submissive is that obedience can be forced. Submissiveness is the desire to obey. If it isn't coming from the heart, it's useless. Words are nice, but without action, or with a contradictory action, they are meaningless. Action is nice, but if your heart isn't in it... if you're just obeying because it's the right thing to do, even if you don't want to... it's meaningless to God. He already knows your heart, and it's the heart that matters. If you go read psalms, there are tons of verses about the heart: The righteousness of the heart, the secrets of the heart, the obedience of the heart. There is scripture that says "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." What God wants from us is a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry. Righteous living - living right. And living right because we want to, not because we're supposed to.

The Whole Truth

The lights dim. The band begins to play. As the preacherman calls people up to the front, tears start flooding down their face. The open area in the front fills with people who have heard the message. They feel overwhelmed with emotion. They know now that their savior has died to save them. Arms around each other, they pray a prayer of acceptance. To accept Jesus Christ into their hearts. They cry and sing, pray and encourage each other. As they make their way back to their seat, they feel a new freedom. They know the love of God. They have been told of His grace, and they thank Him for it. They're able to begin letting go of the past. They feel broken. As the band plays louder, they worship as they have never worshipped before, and it is a beautiful sound.

They have been uninformed.

They have been told about grace, but not about the law. They were presecribed the cure for a disease they don't even fully understand. They have been told that God can remove the burden of sin, but have not been told that there can still be consequences for it. They have not been informed of the cost of living for Christ. They have been told about John 10:10, but not 2 Corinthians 11:23-29. They have been given an incomplete map to heaven. They need to know about the verse that tells us "In that day there will be many who say 'Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons and heal the sick,' and I will say to them 'Be gone evildoers, for I never knew you.'" They need to be told that Jesus said to us "If you love me, obey my commands." They need not be taught all these principles and facts and nice things to do. We need to teach them not how to learn about Jesus, but how to actually walk with Him, have an intimate relationship with Him. Enoch only gets 2 or 3 verses in the entire bible about his life, but from what we do know, it was not his ministry that made God take him before he died. It was his walk, his intimate relationship with the living God. That's what we as Christians should be stiving for - an intimate relationship with our Father, Savior, and Lord. That is the most important thing in life. From that, everything else will stem out. And we'll get into that later.