The apostle John is clear: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12 NIV
But what does it mean to have the Son?
Jesus said, “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 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 then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Matthew 7:21-23 NASB
Clearly, our link to Jesus needs to be a whole lot stronger than, “Oh, yeah, one day I prayed a prayer. Something about Jesus coming into my life. Thought I was good with that.”
So what does it mean to have the Son? What do you think?
The best I can make out, it means we invite Jesus in and allow Him to be who He wants to be, and to do what He wants to do. We open the door to Him, and we keep it open. He will find other doors in our lives that need to be opened, and we open those as well.
It isn’t a performance. We don’t do tricks for Him to make Him happy. We’re not saved by our “good works.” But we are saved by His good work in us. His good work transforms us and makes us citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
I go into this question in my latest YouTube video “002 Am I okay with God.” The title has a number in it because it’s part of a YouTube playlist—Your Guide to Following Jesus.
In other news, I’m writing a novel. If you want to follow it, here’s the YouTube playlist. If I can get my laptop fixed, I plan to post chapter 2 sometime on Wednesday.
Much love from my home to yours!
Dwight
