shalom, malky,
I think they're verses that just illustrate further what PR above here mentions: "...mouth (or lip) service, and not heart service..."
The verses illustrate how its easy to masquerade as a follower of Jesus.
I wonder, Chris, why were you asking the question?
The verses don't intimate it, exactly, but again, it's really about the love question.
The distinictions between what happens when we love, as opposed to when we just "try" to love, or, perhaps, just try to copy.
Jesus is just drawing the distinction between the Real McCoy and the counterfeit.
Good lessons there for all of us.
The "religion" we have in Jesus is one of the few, or probably the only one, where love is at the very nexus of it all - confounding the angels as well as satan himself.
What we do springs from that love we have for Him(which He gives us in the first place, of course - He loved us first). All other - or any other, action, or behaviour, is counterfeit.
In fact, I think, in the New Testament especially, but certainly in the Old Testament(Deuternonmy , for instance), love, and profound love, is the very basis of it all.
I don't think any other "religion" boasts such a central, deep seated, continuing theme.
Which is wonderfully liberating, b/c all other religions ultimately rely upon man's righteousness - the things that he does.
Whereas our knowledge in Jesus relies on absolutely nothing that we can do, to save ourselves - it's all pointless, futile, useless.
Actually, our "faith" is quite opposite to the rest of the world's.
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