One of the most dangerous lies people believe is that they can continue putting off repentance because there will always be more time. They hear conviction, they feel the weight of truth for a moment, and then they go right back to living the same way they always have while promising themselves that eventually they will get serious about God.

But eventually is a dangerous word.

This past Wednesday during our Cover to Cover Bible Reading Challenge as we finished working through 2 Kings, we talked about something that keeps repeating throughout Israel’s history. God kept warning His people. He kept sending prophets. He kept calling them back. He kept showing patience and mercy over and over again, but the people continually hardened their hearts and returned to their idols, their immorality, and their rebellion until judgment finally came. The frightening part is that many of them still believed they were God’s people while they were actively rejecting Him with the way they lived.

That really is not much different from today.

There are people who have spent years sitting in church services, listening to sermons, attending conferences, singing worship songs, and talking about God while running right back to their booze, their drugs, their pornography, their lust, their lies, their gossip, and their secret sin the rest of the week. They know the language of Christianity and they know how to look religious around church people, but deep down they know there has never been true surrender.

At some point a person has to stop playing games with God and ask themselves an honest question. If I stood before Jesus today, would He actually know me?

That question matters because Jesus Himself warned about this in Matthew 7. He said many people would stand before Him talking about all the religious things they did in His name, yet they would hear Him say, “I never knew you; depart from Me.”

What makes that warning so terrifying is that Jesus is not suggesting He knew them once and then lost them somewhere along the way. He is not saying they almost made it. He is saying, “I never knew you.” In other words, there were people who spent their lives around religion without ever truly belonging to Him.

That should shake every one of us.

Modern Christianity has created a version of faith where people think acknowledging Jesus occasionally is the same thing as surrendering to Him completely. People want grace without repentance, salvation without transformation, and heaven without holiness. They want a Jesus who comforts them without confronting the sin that is destroying them.

But real salvation changes a person. It doesn’t make someone perfect overnight, but it creates conviction. A true believer cannot comfortably live in rebellion while pretending everything is fine between them and God. When the Holy Spirit moves into a person’s life, there is a war that begins against sin. There is grief over compromise. There is conviction when we wander. There is a desire to repent, not just excuse ourselves.

The frightening reality is that a person can resist that conviction for so long that their heart slowly hardens. What once bothered them no longer bothers them. What once convicted them no longer convicts them. They become comfortable with sin while still maintaining the outward appearance of Christianity.

Scripture repeatedly warns about this because God’s patience is not meant to be abused. Romans 2:4 says the goodness of God is meant to lead us to repentance. In other words, His mercy is giving us an opportunity to turn back before it is too late. But the same passage warns about people who continue hardening their hearts while storing up judgment for themselves.

People do not like hearing that anymore because we live in a culture that only wants to talk about the love of Jesus while ignoring the warnings of Jesus. But if you truly love someone, you tell them the truth. You warn them when they are heading toward destruction. You do not comfort people into hell by pretending rebellion against God is not serious.

The reality is that none of us are promised tomorrow. One heartbeat can change eternity. One accident, one diagnosis, one unexpected moment, and suddenly every excuse disappears. That is why Scripture says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.”

Not because God delights in judgment, but because He desires repentance. He is patient because He wants people to come to Him. But there is a difference between someone struggling while sincerely pursuing Christ and someone continually rejecting Him while pretending everything is okay.

Eventually every person will stand before Jesus Christ, and in that moment church attendance will not save anybody. Knowing worship songs will not save anybody. Wearing a cross around your neck will not save anybody. Calling yourself a Christian will not save anybody.

The question will be whether you actually knew Him and whether your life truly belonged to Him. Imagine if today was the day…completely without warning…that your life here ended. What do you suppose He would say to you?