Matthew 7:21
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 I was a kid and even into my early teens, I used to watch wrestling on television. This was before all the pay per view and stadium matches. I'm talking about mid 70's to early 1980's. But the shtick was all the same. You had one wrestler call out another one questioning his skill level or making a demeaning remark to start a fight that would rile up the audience both in the crowd and viewers like me on the other side of the TV. One famous wrestler used to challenge the others by yelling, "If you're gonna talk the talk, you'd better walk the walk!!!"
Jesus challenges his disciples with some of the same words in today's reading from Matthew. Not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord" will get to heaven. It also takes some work. It takes sacrifice for others. We all definitely need to pray and ask God of his will for us. But words don't always solve the problem. We should always pray for those less fortunate than ourselves, but what are we doing to help the less fortunate? We should pray for repairs to our marriage and relationships. But what work are we doing to keep those relationships strong? We need to challenge ourselves to fix the world that is broken around us, not just with words but actions. Then we are "talking the talk and walkin the walk! Whooo!"
