Unauthorized

Matthew 7:21-23 in the New Living Translation says, “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.’”

Are we followers of Jesus? The way you tell is if we obey our Father in heaven. It doesn’t matter if we do wonderful works that produce many results. If we aren’t doing it as a result of something God told us, we don’t know Jesus. He only did what he say the Father doing. We have to have authorization for what we do to for it to be effective.

I have had experience with this. When I was working at the church, we would have staff meetings and try to think about events and activities that would cultivate relationships and bring people closer to God. We would schedule an event we thought would be good. We would try and get volunteers to help. Sometimes it would be like pulling teeth to get anyone to help. The event would come and go and hardly anyone would show up. I would feel like we were pushing something that God really didn’t want to happen.

One winter, our pastor wanted to do something totally out of the ordinary. His wife had had a clear word from the Lord and the pastor was adamant that we needed to follow it. He wanted to do a 13 week course called, “From Slavery to Sonship” by Jack Frost. He wanted to suspend small groups during this time. I remember thinking this wasn’t going to work. I figured only a few people would want to do it. I was very pleasantly surprised by the response. Almost everyone in our church wanted to be a part of it. It was well attended and God did some awesome things in people’s lives.

I learned something very important at that time. When God is in something, it usually doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to get others excited about it. When we are trying to make something happen, we can wear ourselves out getting it off the ground. Sometimes, even when God wants something, it will take effort but the effort it takes will not be exhausting, it will be for exhilarating.

I don’t know about you but I want what I do to be authorized by the Holy Spirit. I want it to count for God’s kingdom. I want lives to be changed. As Revelation 2:11 says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” God is speaking. We just have to tune in. May our ears really hear what God is saying and act on it. If we all did this, I can’t even imagine how much different life would be.