Loving, Doing, And Going

Some goats will be surprised; so will some sheep;
When Christ pronounces sentence on that day;
The appointment that all of us will keep----
Believe it or not, it's headed this way!
The surprised goats will be most upset,
Thinking all their lives they had escaped hell;
Only to learn they had lost the crucial bet;
Into the burning Lake of Fire they fell!
The surprised sheep are happier though,
For by choice they practiced the proper things,
Thinking their lives were spent in non-church ways,
They hear the welcome words, "Here are your wings;
Enter into the joy of endless days!"
Lives filled with loving, doing, and going;
Just as God wanted, without e'en knowing!

In the very significant Parable of the Sheep and Goats, Jesus gave the world an important clue in that it helps us to know how He wants us to live. The scripture is found in Matthew 25:31-46, and I ask you to read it in order to understand the poem; it is too long to re-print here. A brief summary is that on the final Day of Judgment, after time has stopped, all people that ever lived will be resurrected and gathered together in two groups before God. One, called the sheep, will be welcomed into heaven with God for eternity; the other, called goats, will be condemned to hell. Jesus said that some of the "goats" will be surprised, evidently because they had assumed during their lives that they were going to heaven; also, He said, some of the "sheep" will be surprised, evidently because they had believed themselves headed for hell.

What was the factor that determined the outcome in each of these situations? It was, in Jesus' own words, those people who ministered to the poor, the down-and-out, the needy, were approved. His words were, "Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me." When you feed a needy person, that man might be Jesus or an angel, or Jesus considers him as Himself; at any rate, He marks it down to your credit as such. That puts an entirely different interpretation upon a beggar than what it would have been had Jesus not given the parable! It could even mean, that instead of attending church every Sunday, you could volunteer at a local soup kitchen for the homeless and receive as much or more credit in heaven!