When I was studying at the university in Arizona, I found a job pumping gas in a service station. I learned a lot about people pumping gas.
Some people would drive up in a not so new car or an old clunker, and they would want me to put ten dollars’ worth of gas or just fill it up. On the other hand, I had some customers that drove up in real nice-looking cars, and they would only want a gallon or two of gas. They had the money because they would pay me with a five- or ten-dollar bill, so I named them my twenty-five cent customers.
Sometimes I saw their cars down the road out of gas.
Those twenty-five cent customers reminded me of something in the Bible.
Many times, people only want a tiny, tiny part of God, or they only want God to have a tiny, tiny part of them - just enough to maybe get them to heaven. That is a very dangerous way to live or gamble - where we will spend eternity.
Many of those twenty-five cent customers did not get where they wanted to go just as many will not be allowed into heaven because they did not know Him (Jesus), or that He did not know them.
Matthew 7:21-24 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Luke 13:22-28 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.
Do not chance it; fill up your spiritual gas tank.
Open our hearts and let God fill our tank.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
See you in Church next Sunday.