In this life, we have two decisions which have an eternal impact on our future. Both of these decisions have to do with Jesus and our acceptance of Him as our Lord and Savior or our rejection of Him. He came to this Earth in the form of the Rock which gave the Israelites water in the wilderness and as the Angel of the Lord. He was also the Pillar of Fire/Smoke which protected the Israelites from the Egyptian army and went with them on their journey through the wilderness. Jesus, the Living Word, the Lamb of God, Counselor and Prince of Peace…He was all of these and our Savior when He took our sins on Himself and paid the price which we could not pay.
So, what is your decision about Him today? Is He your Savior and Lord or will He be your Judge when you stand before Him one day? Think carefully about this decision because when this life is over, you can’t change your mind then. You must choose.
Jesus arose from the tomb after three days and spent the next 50 days teaching His disciples what they needed to know to take His message away from Jerusalem. He may not have been with them every day of that time, but according to the holidays He was around in different places.
So many times we read the Bible, at least those of us who do read it, and we find one gospel which states just the facts like Mark. Then we read John’s gospel and he focused on the miracles and parables which Jesus taught with. John also made sure that we knew that we needed Jesus and we needed to believe in Him as our Savior. The job which Jesus had to do was to pay for all of our sins so we could be granted salvation through our faith and belief in Him as our Savior.
He tried to bring this knowledge to the Jewish leaders and people but they wouldn’t listen. They considered their own righteousness to be enough without Him or His message. Many of us today consider our “righteousness” will be enough to grant us entry into Heaven because we attend church and occasionally read our Bibles. But the outward appearance of being righteous does nothing for our heart or our soul. As Jesus said to them, “You are like whitewashed tombs“.
The only righteousness which counts is what is imputed to us through the surrender of our life to Him and by living daily by His grace and power. We don’t have the ability to be righteous enough without Him in our heart or our life. Make sure of your salvation before it is too late and you stand before Him just as you are right now.
God know that we are not able to keep them, that is why the Ten Commandments are there. To remind each of us of our poverty in faith and to show us that since we have the blood of Jesus covering our sins, no matter the size or severity of our sinful ways, if we have given our heart to Him then we are sanctified by His Righteousness. As He told His disciples, “
A real salvation experience begins with the Holy Spirit convicting you of your need for Jesus. Then you act on that need by confessing your sinful nature and asking Him to come into your heart and change you into the sanctified person which God knows you can be. When that change occurs, there is no doubt about the real change which happens. While it may take a while for you to shed your old ways, the Holy Spirit will convict you when you are doing something outside of God’s will for your life. Therefore, you will not go back to your “old ways”, at least not permanently.
Living with His Word on a daily basis, studying it and prayerfully asking Him to reveal Himself to you in His Word is the Christian Life and once you get used to having His Presence in your life daily you will truly miss Him and His Word when you don’t read it. Some people would say that it has become a habit, but it is a relationship. Consider this: you wouldn’t marry your spouse and then only visit them once or twice a week would you?
Do they hear about Jesus and His love for them? Have we made sure that the message is getting to those places or maybe we are just sitting in church praying that someone will tell them? Have we put feet to our faith or do we neglect to take the message outside the church because it’s too much trouble? What if Paul had said no and decided not to take the message of Christ to the Gentiles, like us, much of the world at the time would never have heard of the love of Jesus!
There is no place that you can go to get away from God so there is no reason to try to escape Him. If you have been denying His existence over your lifetime but He sees that you could have an influence in the lives of others for the good of their salvation, then He will cause something to bring you to Himself. Even if He has to do it through a dream or a vision or a book or even a blog! He knows each person in this world and He knows what they are capable of doing, whether it is for good and for His Kingdom or for evil and to their destruction one day.
Why? Because unless you are working through the Spirit of God with His power and love in your life and heart, much of what you do in this world is only for your benefit and not for others. If you don’t believe me, ask someone why they do their job or anything that they do in this life. Google it even. You will see that much of the world is concerned with only me, myself and I. Occasionally you will hear of some good-hearted souls who do things for others but they are in the minority these days.
