Today's Poem inspired by Matthew 7:21-23
In the hush before the throne of light,
where every shadow bows and every secret stands unveiled,
a throng approaches, voices rising like a tide of thunder,
Lord, Lord, they cry, the syllables echoing through the vastness,
carrying the weight of prophecies once spoken in shadowed rooms,
demons fled at their command, miracles unfurled like banners in the wind.
They list their deeds as proof, a ledger open wide,
each mighty work inscribed in ink of fire and wonder,
done always in the name that now they plead.
Yet the One upon the throne, whose eyes are flame and mercy intertwined,
looks upon them with a gaze that pierces bone and marrow,
and speaks the sentence soft as falling dew, yet final as the grave:
I never knew you.
The words hang in the air like frost upon a summer leaf,
shattering the confidence they carried through their days.
Depart from me, you who worked lawlessness,
though cloaked in signs and wonders, though robed in righteous claims.
How strange the heart that can pronounce the name
with lips that tremble in the heat of holy fervor,
yet harbor chambers where rebellion still holds court,
where self remains enthroned, unyielding to the quiet call
to bend the knee in daily, hidden surrender.
They prophesied, yes, and cast out darkness,
and mighty works bloomed beneath their hands like sudden gardens,
but the root was not in love that obeys,
but in ambition dressed as piety,
in power sought for its own glittering sake.
The kingdom opens not to clamor or to spectacle,
not to the loudest chorus chanting Lord,
nor to the hands that wield the greatest force.
It opens to the one who walks the narrow way of doing,
not speaking only, but enacting the Father's will
in the small hours when no audience applauds,
in the choices where no miracle is needed,
only faithfulness that costs the soul its pride.
Consider then the vineyard where the branches cling
yet bear no fruit because the sap of true abiding fails;
or the house built on the shifting sand of self-deception,
where storms reveal the hollow core beneath the painted walls.
So these stand at the final door, their miracles recounted,
expecting entrance as a debt repaid,
but the door remains shut, the voice repeats the truth:
I never knew you—not in the deep communion
where hearts entwine in silent, mutual knowing,
where obedience flows as breath from lungs,
unforced, uncalculated, born of love returned.
For to be known is more than recognition;
it is the covenant etched in blood and Spirit,
the bond that says, This one is mine, and I am his,
forged not in displays of power but in quiet yielding,
in the daily dying to the lawless will within,
in rising to pursue the good the Father purposes.
The mighty works may dazzle, yet without this union
they are but echoes, brilliant but empty,
fireworks that fade before the dawn of judgment.
And so the warning rings across the ages,
a solemn bell tolling in the Sermon on the Mount:
not all who name the name will hear their own name called
in welcome at the end of time.
Only those who do the will, who live the will,
who let the will reshape the marrow of their being—
these enter, not by merit of their marvels,
but by grace that makes obedience possible,
that kindles true relationship where words alone would fail.
Let the soul then search its hidden corners,
ask whether the Lord is truly known,
not merely invoked in moments of crisis or acclaim,
but dwelt with in the ordinary turning of the days,
until the final declaration is not departure,
but the gentle, everlasting Come, you whom my Father has blessed.
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