NOTES for Mat 7:21-23
Indeed, what depends on us? We can pray ("Lord! Lord!"), we can, calling on God's name and receiving spiritual gifts from Him, do good works (v. 22). And is this not enough? What else can we do? It appears that Jesus wants us not to do something. He says that piety and lawlessness cannot be "combined." The Father's will is that no one should perish. No one means neither I nor you, while sin and lawlessness lead us to destruction. Jesus calls us to the impossible, as in the whole Sermon on the Mount, but He has already walked this path, the path of righteousness, before us.