“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many might works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’      Matthew 7:21-23 ESV

There’s an old saying that goes, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” We can’t fool God at any time, but we can easily deceive ourselves if we are not careful.

I spent many years fooling myself, but I was not fooling God. I didn’t measure up to what He wanted me to be. The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) are a good measure for how we live our lives. Look at them and see how you measure up to God’s word. For example, the first commandment says you shall have no other gods before me. Do you put God first in all you do? You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. How do you do with that one? God’s last name does not begin with D by the way.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. I used to make excuses for not going to church. I had to do my grocery shopping, catch up on laundry or housecleaning. God clearly tells us that we should devote ourselves to Him on that day and that it should be a day of rest. When I did these things on Sunday, I noticed that it usually made for a rough week. God didn’t honor my disobedience.

The ten commandments tell us not to commit murder, but God says that if we hate someone in our heart or call them a moron that we are guilty (Matthew 5:22). We are told not to commit adultery, but Jesus said if we look upon someone with lusts we commit adultery in our heart (Matthew 5:27). We are told not to steal, but we all do. Have you ever been paid to work and taken care of personal business or just been lazy? We are told not to bear false witness against our neighbor, but we spread gossip. Often, we fail to even verify whether or not it is true. We are told not to covet anything our neighbor has, but we go into debt trying to keep up with the Joneses. We want what everyone else has. We can’t be satisfied with what God has given us and we often mismanage it.

A good measure of how much we love the Lord is how obedient we are to His commandments. Jesus said in John 14:15 that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. When we love the Lord, we want to do what He has instructed us to do. 1 John 5:3 says that if we love God, we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. Sin weighs us down, but obedience to God frees us and lightens our loads.

The last scripture I want to share with you today is James 1:22 which tells us that we should be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. You can sit in church every Sunday. You can even go to Sunday School, Sunday night and Wednesday night services. You can hear every word the preacher says. You can read your Bible and know every commandment by heart. But, if you don’t apply it to your life and practice it as you go through each and every day, you are wasting your time. And if you think that God is just going to give you a free pass, you are fooling yourself. I spent many years thinking that God would give me a pass on one or more of his commandments because He understood what a hard time I had been having. I thought He would excuse my lack of church attendance to do what I wanted to do because He knew how stressful my week had been. I thought that He would just overlook my sin. I was fooling myself.

In Exodus 20:5, God tells us that He is a jealous God and He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. This doesn’t mean that He will punish us because our fathers sinned, it means that we set an example for our children. Children watch their parents sin and they sin. Children not raised in church will likely not attend church and will not raise their children in church and it is passed down from generation to generation. But He says in verse 6 that for those that keep His commandments, He will show steadfast love.

Stop fooling yourself and start obeying God’s Holy Word.

Have a great day!