Daniel 5.24-28 records, God sent the hand that wrote on the wall, and this is what is written: mene, teqel, and peres. This is what the words mean: “Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don’t add up. “Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don’t weigh much. “Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians. MSG

For every man there lies ahead the judgement of God. This is when we will all stand before Him to give account to Him for how we lived on this earth in obedience to His commands. Most men plan to enter that day hoping their lives were ‘good’ and acceptable to God not based upon what God has said but based upon their own creation of what pleases God.

While God has told us what He requires, has spelled it out clearly in His Word and repeated it by His presence when He lived among us as one of us in Jesus the Savior, men still ignore Him and create their own criteria for getting to heaven. Most of us will not be as fortunate as Belshazzar who was told his time was up, his life didn’t measure up and his kingdom would be divided up.

But all men will enter that day when their life is up, they will be weighed and measured against God’s Word to determine if they measure up and then watch their life investment in the non-eternal be burned up by the fire of God. God will not surprise us with some new requirements we knew nothing about, everything on His final exam has been revealed in His text book we know as the Bible.

It is we who must study His word so that we pass the exam. Passing is being justified by the work of Jesus through faith, evidenced by living in obedience to Jesus through loving Him and loving others toward Him. Those who do not know Christ through the surrender of their lives to Christ will suffer the words of Christ, ‘depart from Me for I never knew you.’

Let us pray for a heart to love Jesus and a will to serve Jesus so that His kingdom is increased on earth as it fills heaven. May we worship Jesus alone as God and Lord, Creator and Sustainer of all life, and may we obey everything He commanded us so that we hear Him say, ‘well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master.’