Party On

Have you ever wanted to be associated with someone else? You know maybe someone famous. Like to be able to say "Oh, yeah, I know so-and-so, we used to go to school together." Maybe it's more like you are the friend of someone who knows someone else that knows a famous person (or even semi-famous).
It makes you feel like you have a connection...at least kind of. Maybe we hang out with the people who know them, or who have met them, maybe we have even actually met them once. In the end, we still don't actually "know" that person and they don't know us.

In Luke 13:22-30, Jesus is going through the various towns headed to Jerusalem. At one point he is asked about entering into the Kingdom of God and he replies that the gate is narrow and many will try to enter it and fail. Then he uses the example of someone locking up their house and people coming to the door and knocking to be let in, and the owner of the house refusing to let them in because he doesn't know them. The people make claims of having known him, but will still are shut out.

It's like if we showed up at a party that famous person was having. They aren't going to let us in, no matter about all that other stuff, because we don't know them. We can beg all we want, we can make the claims that we know their friends, or family members, even that we were in the same place as them once, it really isn't going to matter. They still don't know us.

This is what Jesus seems to be saying here. It's not enough for us to "kind of" know him and God. It doesn't matter if we hang out with people who know them, or if we have family members who know them. It's about us knowing Him. That is how we get in to the party. Here is the great thing about it too, God desires to know us, personally, in order to let us into the party. It's not enough to just go to church, or to hang out with Christians, we have to enter into that relationship ourselves in order to get into the party. Peace and Love y'all.