knowing or believing

Here's the deal, I hear a lot of people say they believe in God, a god, something out there that they don't really know but belief will not get you to heaven. Does that sound like a pretty serious claim? Well it should because it is.
The two scriptures that I am really focusing in on with this are Matthew 7:21 - 23 and James 2: 18 - 26, emphasis on 21. People can believe all they want, but until it starts getting real in their lives it's not worth much. So how does it look in the lives of a person who knows Jesus? Desire. What we want and work for is what we worship. Some people want revival so they pray for it and on occasion take the steps to bring it closer. I love prayer, I have seen God move in ways that I can't understand and barely can express through peoples prayers but until it becomes action the prayers are just hitting the ceiling.
James 5:13 - 18 really sums up my views of prayer. Ironic sort because I've never read the passage before but since the writer of the book lives in me I am not too surprised by it! The prayers of the righteous are effective and powerful but we are only made righteous through Christ. By belief and by pursuit, the intentional practice of getting to know God we become more sanctified. That is were a lot of people fall short. They think that the one time acceptance or through being baptized that they are straight with God but  never pursue Him as we ought. Now I know that friendships and relationships have been sort of watered down by the whole modern social network craze but for friendships to be genuine and grow only comes through communication and contact.
For me, when I haven't heard or talked to somebody in a long time I stop considering them my friend. I am a little more extreme then others because I have removed probably close to 400 people from Facebook that were at one time my "friend" but who I have no reason to communicate with so I take them off.  The fact is that they may believe that we are still friends but on the off chance that I was to get together with most of them, there would be little to nothing to talk about, obviously because we don't know each other. I am just being more straight up in owning the fact that the relationship, as weak as it may have been before, is now dead. In person to person relationships that can be sort of sad but when it comes to God, that's tragic beyond most people's comprehension.
I wish I could say that every person that believers in God actually knew Christ, but that's not the case and I am a realist about these things. It's never too late to change and God is always waiting right behind us whenever we are ready to turn around and start building the relationship.