Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” When Jesus gives his description of the last judgment in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats the criterion for salvation was not if you made Jesus your personal Lord and Savior. Rather, it was whether you showed love, whether you cared for others. The “will of my Father in heaven” is not that we get our names on the roll call of those who belong to Church. God’s will is that we imitate God who gives his love without counting the cost. The human temptation to look out for “number one” can infect our relationship with God when we remain content to claim Jesus as our own possession. The challenge of beliet is to recognize the face of Jesus in all the people we encounter in life, particularly in those who are suffering or are in need. Belief is not limited to our heads but something we must express with our hands.
