Before being taken into the operating room for my knee replacement I asked someone why they were giving me a particularly large looking shot. He said, “This is just in case you wake up during the surgery you will not remember it.” Wow. That was something I didn’t need to hear. The thought of waking up while the orthopedist was sawing off chunks of bone had never occurred to me. I could have lived without hearing that.
It made me recall a few other things in life I could have lived without hearing. In the seminary we had a church history professor that struck terror to all who entered his lair. No one would make eye contact with him lest he call on you. To hear “Mr. Bothwell” made my heart stop beating, my hands grow cold and my knees to quake. After asking for some obscure fragment of information he would say, “F. Mr. Bothwell. F.” Horrors.
Matthew 7:21 – 23 is another thing we never want to hear. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, . . .’”
Fortunately we will never have to hear that because Jesus also said, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. If you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.” Those are the sweetest words we will ever hear.
Written by Roger Bothwell on January 5, 2015
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org