So many people work for heaven but are later lost. Why?
People who think they’ll make it:
Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me,you workers of lawlessness.’ Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.… – Matthew 7:22-24
So many people don’t get the order right about God’s gifts and the things of heaven. People focus on using the gifts of God even at the expense of their relationship with God who gives the gift. Notice how the Lord focused on those who do this? “Did we not prophesy in your name… cast out demons and perform many miracles“. And yet the Lord will give the heart-rending remark of eternal significance “Depart from me”. These people focused so much on using God’s gifts, paid little attention to the things that matter.
So many people work for heaven but are later lost. Why?
People who will make it:
What the above means isn’t that we cannot use the gifts God gives us, but we must use them within the Church in the proper manner. We must use them with love and humility; we cannot let those gifts take us away from God or let them estrange us from the community.
The Law is love:
Each Christian knows he is a candidate of heaven when he is ablaze with this love. Love has been described with words synonymous with fire. Indeed, in some sense, love has been perceived as having fiery property itself.
The human perception of love varies, some consider it in its purely human model of basic communion and companionship, as a sharing of self, some go further to conceive it only as Eros, the fiery fire of love is identified with the fires of passion.
In Christianity
The meaning of Love is rendered more spiritual since it is viewed as having a divine origin and purpose. We believe that love is first of all directed to God, the maker of all, and then to all things for the sake of God. Whenever that order is changed, that love is no longer true; that love becomes selfish.
The whole of the Christian Message and doctrines are stories of love. The entire Church celebrations are at their core, the celebration of God’s gratuitous love; all the festivities, all the Saints’ days, solemnities, etc are because of this love; this powerful love that transforms all things.
This love gives meaning and dignity to all things according as they are loved by God. Humans are good not because of their personal actions, but because of the Love God has for them, a unilateral decision on the part of God not linked to personal merits. This is the basis of our dignity as human persons; that the Lord loves us as a People, and as individuals, that God has a personal love for each and all.
The command:
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34,35
Heaven is on fire !
God is love; God is a consuming fire!
Heaven is communion with God, a transformation of lovers to beloved (God). God himself is a consuming fire, and this means that all of Heaven IS ON FIRE!
If you have the gift of prophecy, of healing, of levitation, of visions and locutions, of bi-location or stigmata. You can still land yourself in hell if you do not abide by God’s love. If you do not look at others through the eyes of God and help them with anything you have. Mustn’t be money, or clothes, just a smile, your time, a word or two might help someone in need.
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘… inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.’
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’… ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’
And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
So many people work for heaven but are later lost. Why?
Agape love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). It is one of the effects of the Holy Spirit within us such as inner peace and strength. The fruits of the Spirit are inner qualities that affect our outward behavior, and are a moderating influence on us.