Lesson #9 - Doing God's Will

The Bible must be our only authority in religion if we want to please God and go to heaven. People must give up all the various false doctrines that propagate the many different kinds of denominations and go back to only the New Testament. There were no denominations in the New Testament times and there would be none today if only the Bible was taught and practiced. There would be only the Lord's one true church, the church of Christ.

How then do we make sure that we are among the few who are saved and not among the many who are lost? Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23, "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness". If you believe and call Jesus, "Lord, Lord", you are still lost if you do not do what God says. If we ever hope to go to heaven, we must do the will of the Father. This is the only way. Not the will of men, but God’s will. Not our own will, but God’s will. Just because we call Jesus our Lord, this will not save us.

Jesus says in the above scripture, that on the day of judgment, that many will be pleading with him, calling him Lord, Lord, and reminding him of the many wonderful works that they had done in His name, but He will say unto them, "I never knew you, depart from Me you who practice lawlessness". Why? Why? Because they had not done the will of the Father in heaven. Oh, they thought they had, but they hadn’t. They had done their own will or the will of some other man. This will be the worst thing that will ever be said to an individual, when the Lord on judgment day says to the majority of people, "Depart, I never knew you". There will be no appeal to this decision. There will be no second chance. We have to get it right the first time.

These people in the above scripture seemed to be honest, but they were honestly mistaken as many people are today. Apparently they were good people, because they had "done many wonderful works". But they had not done the will of the Father which is in heaven. Man generally wants to do things his way and he doesn't really care what God thinks. We cannot obey God without doing what God says to do, when God says to do it, how God says to do it, and for the reason God says to do it. Nothing is more important than pleasing God by doing His will.

We learn from the above scripture, that we don't go to heaven by doing the will of men, or by doing what we think is right. The only way we can go to heaven is by doing the will of the Father, and that will is found right in our Bibles. Do we really know what the will of the Father is so that we can be sure of going to heaven? This is too important a matter to assume that we do or to take someone else’s word for it. Do we really know what the Bible says that God wants us to do in order to be saved?

What must I do to be saved? This is a very important question. Many people would answer this question in many different ways. The many different denominations give many different answers. Only God's way is correct. The Bible is the only reliable source we can go to for our answer, since it is our soul that will be lost if we follow man's advise. Our obedience to Christ is a very serious decision and must not be taken lightly. It must be on the Lord's terms as laid out in the scriptures and not on our terms.

We have already seen in Matthew 7:13-14, 21, only few will be saved, and many will be lost, and only those who do the will of the Father can go to heaven. We read in 1 John 2:4, "He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." "A liar" is pretty strong language. A person is lying to himself and everyone else who says he knows and loves God, but does not keep God's commandments. We know that a liar cannot go to Heaven. We must do all of God's will, so that we can go to Heaven. There is no other way. No single condition, that God imposes, can be ignored. God has no non-essential commands. When we don't obey a command of God, we have just broken it. What then is God's will, so that we can go to Heaven and not have to endure eternal punishment forever and ever? We will find the answer in the Bible in the following lessons.