I NEVER KNEW YOU
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" Matthew 7:21-23
"O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me." John 17:25
For far too long, I have wondered about those who come to the judgment and claim all their good works should shoo them into heaven. Yet, God will tell them He never knew them.
I have heard preachers on video say that those individuals were never born again in the first place. In some instances, that may be true. But there's a much larger fact to be considered here.
Howard Pittman, a Baptist preacher who died clinically, was in the place between life and death where He faced God and declared why he wanted to come back to earth and not die. He told God all the good things he had done. He preached on street corners on week-ends using a PA system he carried in the trunk of his car. He handed out Gospel tracts. He and his wife took in 32 abused children. He pastored a church and also served in law enforcement. Having heard all his good works, God told Pittman, "All your good works are an abomination to Me!"
Pittman was shocked. "I did them in Your name!" he declared. "I called you Lord every day."
"Yes, but you didn't make Me Lord," was God's reply. Pittman didn't have a leg to stand on!
When Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden because of their sin, Genesis 4 says, "And the man had relations with his wife..." which the King James translates to say that he "knew" Eve. The Hebrew word for that is yada, a euphemism for the intimate relations between a husband and wife.
The Greek word that mirrors yada is ginosko. Again, it refers to the intimacy of marriage. It is that word ginosko that Jesus used when He said God the Father will say, "I never knew you. I was never intimate with you. You were not intimate with Me. I didn't know you in total subission to Me." After all, isn't that what a wife does with her husband? She yields her body as well as her heart to him.
When God created man and woman in the Garden, He further said that they would become one flesh. When a born-again believer submits to the total Lordship of the Holy Spirit, he or she becomes one flesh with the Spirit. He or she gives up their single identity to become a love-slave of Jesus Christ.
Before the crucifixion when Jesus counseled His disciples, He said He was WITH them, but He would send the Holy Spirit who would be IN them.
"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I do away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you." John 16:7
One flesh. But it has to be more than the new birth. There must come a crisis when a person submits completely to the authority and ownership of the Holy Spirit. It is in that baptism that not only does the Holy Spirit take authority over the believer, but also He reveals Himself to that person in holy, precious ways known only to intimate lovers.
Hirelings in the pulpit who display all sorts of works in the name of Jesus, but who do not live the servant life, are charlatans not worthy of the Name. All their display is for man's applause, notoriety, riches and pride. On judgment day their works will be exposed, just as were Pittman's. Abomination to God!
Notice that these words were not spoken about those in main-line churches, particularly. Most of them do not embrace or have anything to do with healing, speaking in tongues or working of miracles. In fact, many are termed cessasionists, meaning that they believe all signs and wonders ceased after the Book of Acts and were meant only for the apostles of Jesus' time.
No, those who appear at the judgment and are so surprised will be those largely of Pentecostal/Charismatic labels who do have a wonderful revelation of the Holy Spirit in His fullness, but do not give Him Lordship. Instead, they use Him to perform mighty works for their own praise and adulation.
God wants us, as faithful lovers, to give ourselves exclusively to Him, the lover of our soul---the Holy Spirit. We are 'engaged' to Jesus when we are born again. But He wants to consummate the marriage of our soul to Him through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when we utterly submit to His Lordship and progressively grow in the likeness of Jesus from that time forward.
That submission is not a suggestion. It is not an option. Jesus said,
"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matthew 16:24-26
Submission to Him is not a suggestion. It is not an option or is it? Sounds like life or death. So lots of 'good works' won't make it. Only submission to Him will. Does He KNOW you?