Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. Not everyone who calls out to me, “Lord! Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. [Matthew 7:20-21 NLT]
Having previously warned people that not everyone who claimed to follow Him would enter the Kingdom, Jesus told the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in which He likened the last judgment to a king separating the sheep from the goats at the end of the day. Placing the sheep to His right and the goats to His left, the King invites the sheep into the Kingdom. The reasoning behind His selection is disarmingly simple: “For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.” [Matthew 25:35-36] Having failed to do those things, the goats are sent into eternal punishment.
Both the blessed (sheep) and the condemned (goats) are astonished at the King’s explanation and they ask when they did or didn’t do those things. The goats seemed to expect they’d enter the Kingdom. After all, they’d followed all the rules. They may have recited the creed Sundays at church, tithed (after taxes of course), and avoided even a whiff of scandal but their supposed faith never moved from their heads into their hearts. Nevertheless, they’re confident they would have helped Jesus if they’d ever seen Him.
Like the goats, the sheep don’t remember seeing Jesus. But, unlike the goats, their faith produced fruit. They’d grocery shopped for the ailing neighbor, brought casseroles to the grieving family, offered water to the landscaper, read to the blind woman down the street, written letters to prisoners, worked at the food pantry, brought communion to the house-bound, mentored a refugee family, tutored immigrant children, volunteered in the charity resale shop, been foster parents, or taken cancer patients to chemo. Rather than projects, they saw people in need! Like the goats, they don’t recall seeing Jesus’ face; nevertheless, sacrificial love was a way of life for them.
Both sheep and goats ask Jesus, “Lord, when did we ever see you?” He explains that whatever the sheep did for the “least of these” had been done for Him and that, whenever the goats refused to help the “least of these,” they had refused to help Him! If, like the Pharisees, we split hairs and ask who the “least of these” are, Jesus answered that question with the Good Samaritan parable and his command to love one another as He loved us! [John 13:34]
This isn’t a case of faith versus works. We are, indeed, saved by grace through faith alone. Even so, our faith is judged by our works and it is by our fruit that He will know us. If our faith hasn’t transformed our lives, it is dead. Faith is far more than “lip service;” we can’t claim we love Jesus when we fail to love others as He did!
Being a sheep isn’t about heroic, grand, or impressive deeds. The sheep hadn’t cured cancer, solved the housing crisis, or reformed the prison system. They didn’t do great things but they continually did little things with great love! Without realizing it, they saw Jesus in every person they met. Both groups claimed to love the Shepherd but only the sheep loved as the Shepherd loved!
Sacrificial love is the real wool that distinguishes the sheep from the goats. Having real wool does not make you a sheep. But being a sheep causes you to have real wool. [Hayden Hefner]
My son has a beautiful pomegranate tree in his yard but, when he first purchased the property, he didn’t know what it was. Although showy red flowers eventually appeared, it wasn’t until the flowers developed into deep-red globe-shaped fruit that he knew it was a pomegranate. The tree was recognized by its fruit and it is by our fruit that Christ’s followers are recognized.
As Christ’s followers, we are saved through our faith and God’s grace. God takes us soiled sinners just as we are because there is no way we could be good enough to earn salvation. Nevertheless, just because God welcomes His immoral, angry, impatient, bad-tempered, anxious, sinful, and selfish children doesn’t mean He wants us to stay that way. When Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery, He told her to, “Go and sin no more” and, when we are saved, He tells us the same thing!
Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, thirteen are attributed to the Apostle Paul. We know he wrote another letter to the Corinthians and the prolific letter writer probably wrote letters to believers in places like Damascus, Caesarea, and Jerusalem, but these thirteen are all that remain. Considering Nero’s persecution of Christians, the violence during the Jewish revolt, and Domitian’s persecution of Jews and Christians, all of which happened before the end of the 1st century, it’s a wonder that any of Paul’s letters survived! God, however, saw to it that these thirteen ”God-breathed” epistles were preserved and became part of the Christian canon.
Effortlessly skimming over the water, the bird occasionally dipped its bill into the water before gracefully rising, circling the pond, and returning to skim along the water again. Even though I’d never seen one inland, the bird’s large bill, distinctive black and white coloring, and unique flight identified it as a black skimmer. Although skimmers usually spend their lives around sandy beaches and coastal islands, sometimes they feed in inland lakes during nesting season and I was thrilled to watch several skimming over our lake just before sunrise.
Our sons recently visited to celebrate their father’s birthday. As I watched them work their culinary magic in the kitchen, I marveled at how the boys who once thought Kraft mac n’ cheese to be haute cuisine became gourmet cooks. For that matter, when did they get so tall or those wrinkles appear around their eyes? At what point did the tow-headed boy’s hair darken and start receding or his brother’s turn grey? The changes I observed weren’t just physical. As we talked, I wondered when my once irresponsible boys became so sensible and wise. None of it happened overnight and yet each little change was so subtle it barely was noticed. But, when I thought back to the children and young adults they once were, the change was enormous.
Devotions of the Heart 