I have noticed recently that almost every time I strike up a conversation with a person I know is a believer in Christ, the talk about God quickly veers to moral issues and frustrations about the general direction of our culture. I used to lead these conversations, believe me, but I have come to be more and more frustrated with them. I'm not frustrated because people are wrong about the downward trend, but because I think people are missing the point. Sometimes, I have to laugh, because I remember growing up, when the hot topic moral issue was a fellow church member's neighbor, who brazenly mowed his lawn on Sunday. I am talking about confusing morality with Christianity, and I am going to say something you might find shocking: God is not interested in your morality. Your morality is distasteful to Him, because it is shallow, hypocritical, judgmental, selective, and prideful, and so is mine. I know I am taking a harsh tone, and I don't want you to take it personally, but I still know some people who would read the last sentence and think to themselves, "I need a deeper and better morality, then." Sometimes I think we just don't get it. So, what does God want from you? God does not want righteousness from you. He wants closeness.
So what's wrong with being good? Nothing. Be as good as you can be. Things will tend to go better for you. If you are bad, things will tend to go worse for you. But, here is what Jesus said:
"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."
So you have to do the will of the Father. But what is the will of the Father?
"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?'
So these people have been very good. Were they doing the will of the Father? They have been better than most of us. If we saw one of these people on the street doing these things, we might even be awestruck.
"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" (Matt. 7)
The key to understanding what Jesus is saying is to understand the word "know." When Jesus said He never knew them, He meant that He never had an intimate personal connection to them. So their good deeds, even if they were miraculous, make them no better than a criminal. Now this is bad news for people who are counting on their religion, or even their goodness to get them to heaven. But it is really good news for criminals!
It is good news for criminals, and for everyone who might believe they are far from God, because it puts us all on even footing. Earlier (Matt. 5), Jesus told them that unless their righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. This shocked His listeners, but what He was telling them was that there was no way anyone was getting to heaven on the basis of their own goodness.
So what, then, is the will of the Father, that, if we do it, gets us into heaven? According to Jesus, it is to believe in Him. Not to believe things about Him, but to put your trust in Him. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary just three days ago. When we first got married, we thought we knew each other, but there were a lot of things we didn't know. My wife had to put her trust in me without knowing the whole story, but only knowing that I loved her, and that it felt right. That's how it is with Jesus. You are never going to know the whole story until you put your trust in Him. Some people get married and then go on building their careers or their households, maybe even in the name of their family, but they end up living separate lives. So it is with many people who call themselves Christians. They pray a prayer to start a "personal relationship with Jesus," and then they go on their way, doing "good" things, thinking that will please the Father. Then they look up and lament the bad people who are ruining their way of life. But, here is what Jesus says in John 14 (the same passage that contains His promise to answer our prayers):
"If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him."
This is how I would like you to understand this passage: Love is the power to keep His word. Not only is love the power to keep His word, it is His word. This entire passage used to be frustrating to me, not because I didn't understand it, at least in theory, but because I couldn't do it. I couldn't love God. Even the effort to love felt hollow. I didn't understand that the love of God has to be received. I didn't really know how much He loved me, so, I thought He wanted obedience, discipline, sacrifice, religion, morality. The trouble with those things is they lead to resentment, comparisons, anger, judgment, and hypocrisy.
God created you for love. He desires a relationship with you. He made you in His image, and now He wants to restore you, so you can love Him. He loves you so much, He sent Jesus to die in your place to accomplish your righteousness for you, so there would be no walls between you and Him.
I want to finish up with a couple thoughts about abiding in Christ, which is what I have been talking about. Abiding in Christ is given by Jesus as a condition for answered prayer (John 15:7). I talked about it a little in a previous post about praying in His name. The best way to sum it up is to say that it is receiving a friend into your home, not building up knowledge about Jesus, the doctrine. As your friendship grows, you will start to see things the way He sees them. Instead of seeing immorality, you will start to see sheep without a shepherd. You will start to see people Jesus died for. You will see people He is not judging. You will find the power inside you to love God and to love people, because He has given you a new heart. You won't judge people, because He isn't judging you. You will love people who aren't lovely, because He loved you when you were unlovely. And then you will be righteous, after all.