In The Gospel of Mathew, chapter 5, Jesus describes the people who will know God, find peace and righteousness, inherit the earth, and enter into His Kingdom. He said that He did not come to abolish or change the Law and the Prophets, that is, the Law of the Israelites, but He also said that except your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, the experts at keeping the Law of the Israelites, you will in no way enter the kingdom of heaven that He was sent to establish on earth. He went on to show some of the ways that the Pharisees were getting it wrong in their teachings and practices and how He expected His followers to teach and practice their worship of God. He finished that sermon by explaining the importance of His words, His teaching. He said that anyone who heard His words but failed to apply them would be like a man that built his house on the sand. That house would not stand on the day of testing. But a man that heard His words and applied them would be like a man that built his house on bedrock and that house would withstand the winds and the waves and stand on the day of testing.
Jesus also taught that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. He said to, “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” He also taught his followers to love one another for by that, the world would know they were his. He also commanded his followers that, unlike the Pharisees, they should not seek to be called “Rabbi” because they had only one Master and they were all brothers. He said, “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father’, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.” These teachings describe the people that will join Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus taught many other things about his kingdom and hand-picked his apostles, to be witnesses of all that he had said and done and to make disciples of all nations by teaching them all that he had commanded.
