Mark 12.34 comments, you’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.
Who was this man that God observed, was almost there? First, its not a good thing to be ‘almost there’ in the eyes of God. If ‘there’ is heaven the only other destiny is hell. We don’t want God to say we are almost in heaven! So who was this man?
He was a religious scholar. He was a student of God and His biography, a book we call the Bible. He was a man that should have known the character, nature and will of God because he was familiar with the word of God.
His familiarity was evidenced in his understanding and acknowledgement to God, Jesus, of what is most important to God. Herein is the clue to his ‘near’ arrival to heaven. The religious scholar knew God’s word and what God desired but most likely he was poor in his execution of the doing of God’s will.
The scholar knew that what was most important to God was to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as our self. But if he did not love God first and most and his neighbor as he loved himself, but knew these things to be the supreme will of God, then he would be close to getting into heaven without getting to heaven because he was not doing what he knew God wanted.
He was close because he knew what God wanted but not in because he didn’t do what God wanted. This is why reading, learning and studying the Bible is so important. We cannot know God or how to please Him without spending time in His biography that He gave us for the exact purpose of knowing Him and doing His will. Ignorance of God and His will keeps us living in disobedience to God no matter how good we think we are. But knowing God and His will is insufficient for pleasing God.
We must do His will if we are to please God. The enemy of God knows the will of God but works against that very will. God said whoever is not for Him is against Him. Our works must align with God’s will for them to be approved by God. We are not good because we think we are good. We are good because we do what God declares good.
Fortunately, getting to heaven is not based upon our works but the work of God in Jesus, appropriated to us through faith in Him as Savior of the world. Neverthless, we are not going to heaven if we believe this to be true, we are going to heaven when we live this truth.
