"Go away, for I never knew you."

"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 mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.'" - Matt 7:22-23

Yesterday evening I watched a TV documentary about Tania Head, once feted as probably the best-known survivor of the 9/11 tragedy. It was interesting to note that even though in the end she turned out to be a fraud, and in fact had never even been in America on the day of the disaster, nevertheless she was responsible for raising the profile of the Survivor's Group and, in doing so, directly responsible for much good that came out of that raised profile. It might well be argued therefore, that even though her motivation was wrong, even though she told lie after lie, what she did in terms of the overall 'big picture' brought comfort and relief to many people. There would no doubt be some people, perhaps even many people, who might argue that what she did caused no real harm to anyone, or that, if it did, it could be justified by offsetting the good against it.

A great part of her deception centred around the fact that she had lost her fiance, David, who had perished in one of the Twin Towers, whilst she survived because she was in the other one. If only someone could have let her stand in front of David, face to face! He would have said to her, "Go away, I never knew you!"

Her problem was that she obviously knew a great deal about the 9/11 disaster, but she never was personally involved in it. In the end all her knowledge was to no avail. She was exposed as a fraudster.

I think that for anyone who wears the label 'Christian', the worst thing that could ever happen to them would be for them to eventually stand face to face with Jesus only to have Him say those dreaded words, "Depart from Me, for I never knew you."

Many people refer to themselves as Christians yet in reality, although they know a lot about Jesus, they do not know Him. Sometimes this will be the fault to a large extent of those who are called to teach, but that's only part of the cause. For anyone to deserve the name Christian it's important that they have handed their life over to Him entirely.

You may know of a large Company, perhaps one with a store in every main street or in every Shopping Mall. You may go in and purchase things regularly from them. You may know many of the staff who work in the stores. You may even read about the Chief Executive in the Business Press from time to time. Yet you will not know him, and neither will he be able to acknowledge you. In order to know him you would need to go to work for him and serve his needs, gradually learning more and more about him from a personal interface with him. If you ever became his PA then you would need to know him even more, and eventually you would be able to serve his needs automatically because you would know the way that he liked things done. You would have an understanding of what he would say and how he would react in any given situation. You would really know him!

The only way to serve Jesus as you are called to do is to get to really know Him intimately, knowing what to do and what to say in any given situation, because you would know just what He would say or do. If you can do this in this life, then you can be certain that He will know you in the next and will never have to turn to you and say, "Depart from Me, for I never knew you."