“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
Not "You never knew Me" (even though knowing Him is so important that He refers to it as life), but "I never knew you." This is startling and wonderful. I think what He's saying is, "You never gave Me access to yourself. Your Christianity was an act."
Only God knows the heart, so there will certainly be many surprises "on that day." Some who were dismissed as flighty church-hoppers will turn out to have been on a journey of deep surrender to the Lord. Some who were looked up to as pillars of the church will be revealed to have been on a journey of self-serving and game-playing.
One thing I notice about the practicers of lawlessness in the above passage is that they do an awful lot of talking about what they did in His name.
I don't want to do anything in His name. I want to be His vessel, prepared for His use through suffering and through the relentless work of the Holy Spirit, lost in His all-consuming love and grace, and released to fly with Him like the eagle. The eagle, who disregards the hurried fluttering of other birds, instead waiting patiently on the rock until it senses the arrival of the current, then begins to float upwards into the sky.
Only Jesus can soar like the eagle -- only Jesus and those He keeps tucked tightly under His wing, because they know Him and have given Him free reign to know them in return.