”Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” Luke 21:33
Each of us has a unique identity, a unique set of innate skills and abilities given to us by our Creator, God, Who is the One and only true God. He has chosen to make Himself known to all whom He has created through the agency of the only creature He created in His own image and after His own likeness - Man.
No other creature bears the identifying imprint of God but mankind. Moreover, God created man in two distinct forms, but one man, male and female. He created them in His image and according to, with the same identifying qualities of His likeness. Every child conceived and born into the world comes into the world bearing the same identifying imprint of God.
But there was one child born into the world, made like all men in the image and likeness of God, but with a unique character, a unique and eternal human destiny and possessing an eternal authority, power and glory. He was in all ways subject to the same human nature as all men. This man came from God and He was God, born into the world as a man to bear the sins of man, to redeem God’s created man, that is, all mankind, male and female, He came to redeem us from our sins and to deliver us from death.
This man alone was the only man without sin at his death. Therefore, this man, because He was fully man and able to be tempted in every way as all other men was able to be man’s sacrifice for the sins of all men. He did no sin, nor was any guile found in his mouth. When He was reviled, he did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten those who made Him suffer.
“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. 1Peter 2:22-25
The birth, the life, the works, the Words, the suffering, the death, the burial and the Resurrection of Jesus were all given to us by God, the Creator, Who loved us so much, despite our low, fallen, degenerate detestable, sinful, human nature, that He gave us this man Jesus His Son to be our one and only spotless, pure and unblemished Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.
It is this Jesus Whom we bow before in humble submission and complete surrender to worship HIM, to honor Him, to magnify him, to glorify Him, to exalt Him over all. He is the Lord God, the Most High, the Almighty God.
He is Jesus Christ, The Way, The Truth and The Life. He is not just one among the many gods created in the image of man, fashioned with human hands, stolen from the trees or hewn out of the rocks and placed on high places, to stand as brute idols before whom men debase themselves to worship. And they do so never considering that these idols cannot see them or hear them or speak a word to them, because they have no life in them. They are as dead as the ones who made them. How foolish of the one created in the image and likeness of God to submit his God likeness to the emptiness and death of something so far beneath his own dignity and worth.
Only in The True Life. Jesus Christ, can we who were dead in sin find life. Only in Jesus Christ can we be redeemed from death. Only in Jesus Christ can we have eternal life. And only through Jesus Christ will this world be saved.
How can we then be silent? How can we then embrace false gods and idols as though they are one with our dear Lord? They are not! All religions made by men are the result of man’s refusal to acknowledge God as God or who choose to rebel against God and against the truth that no one comes to the Father but through His Son Jesus Christ. There is simply NO OTHER WAY!
Resurrection Day proves the Jesus alone is God, because He alone has overcome death, hell and the grave. In Him alone, by Him alone, and through Him alone we are made alive forevermore.
The church has sat by idly too long, preoccupying itself with social issues or seeking ways to be acceptable to a dying culture or appease those who oppose her and threaten her existence by compromising the clear and unequivocal call of Jesus Himself to be in the world but not of it. We have the only message of hope the world needs to hear. Will we be persecuted for speaking it? Yes, by some. But by those who are hungry for the truth, for life, for hope and for salvation from the death of this world it is like water to a thirsty soul. By them we will be received with gladness.
We cannot judge the world for rejecting our message. If we have spoken the truth of Christ to them, we should not be surprised if they reject us and reject our message, because they are blind to the truth until the light of Gospel breaks through to their hearts. They are not rejecting us, but in their ignorance of our Lord they are rejecting the One who sent us. So be it. Let God judge between us. But if we, like the man who was given one talent, take the message of the Gospel and hide it within ourselves, not willing to risk it in the market place of ideas and social discourse, then when our Master returns and calls us to give an account of what we have done with the message of the Gospel, will he not judge us, as Jesus taught, with the same judgment given to the man who hid his talent?
The one talent given to him was taken from him and given to the one who had gained five more for the five he was given. The man who hid his one talent was cast into outer darkness. How then shall we be judged, if, because of fear, timidity or a desire not to “offend” those who oppose us, we do not share the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as far and as widely as we can? Shall we suffer the same fate as the man who hid his talent?
The church is the only voice in the world with the message of Jesus. Who else will speak for Him if we don’t? We who trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone for salvation are the church. As the Church we are the body of Christ. We are the physical presence of Christ in the world. His message, His ministry, His works are now ours to declare.
Let us therefore live daily in an attitude of thanksgiving, of submission to His will, of passion for His glory, worshiping Him in spirit and in truth, loving Him with all our hearts and loving one another as He has loved us.
There are many temporal things that vie for our time and attention, the internet, TV, Social media, entertainment, sports, our jobs, our selfish passions and so on. But knowing we are created by God for His purpose and pleasure, what is that eternal thing that our God has called us to attend to first and above all other things?
His Word.
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