My heart breaks for a world around me that does not understand the love of Jesus Christ. The Need for Jesus Christ and the Fact of Jesus Christ. When I say the world around me, I refer to family, friends, and neighbors. The people that I need to do a better job of relaying the message of the Salvation of Jesus Christ.
The Love of Jesus Christ
Galatians 1:1-12
1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
2 And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia:
3 Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
To understand the depth of the love of God, it helps to understand the life of Paul. A staunch religious leader, educated to the highest degree. In the eyes of man – Paul had it all. So God took his eyes, at least for a short while. (Acts 9:1-8) God had to shut down Paul’s vision of all else, so that he could get his attention on the one and only God, Jesus Christ. It’s not so amazing as how God got Paul’s attention as the fact that God wanted to get Paul’s attention to begin with. Paul had been killing every Christian he could to stop the spread of the Christian faith. Paul didn’t believe Jesus was God. He was so angry at the people of Christian faith that he had them stoned to death. I cannot, nor do I want to, imagine the horrific degree of pain that would involve. And every time God would have looked on it as another reminder of what these same people did to His Son, and yet God loved and wanted Paul as a servant. Would you? If someone was killing your children with rocks and justifying it in your name, would you go to the extreme that God did to call a man like Paul to preach? No. I doubt any of us would.
It is that depth of love that allows us to see how God loves pedophiles, mass murderers, and child abusers. We can’t imagine loving them, but God does. It also removes the excuse that anyone has of being saved because they’re too evil and our excuse not to witness to them. It certainly removes our excuse for not witnessing to people we say we care about.
The Need for Jesus Christ
Paul said in verse 4 “that he might deliver us from this present evil world.”
Is the world any less evil now? Satan’s ability to expose even the youngest of minds to evil through technology would have been unimaginable to Paul. While in biblical times they understood the heartache of sin and disease, they couldn’t see it worldwide, 24 hours a day. If I ask you to write down how many sad or scary things you’ve seen in the course of the last 24 hours, the list would likely be long. I sat with my 87 year old mother last night who is struggling with dementia and we watched the evening news. There were Hamas children being pulled from the war rubble where a Father lost his wife and all of his children. It tore at Mother’s heart and of course mine. But there is a greater need for Christians to understand the evil behind that war with innocent victims. It’s not that God hates the Hamas Palestinian terrorists. God would save them just as He did Paul. But those people refuse to confess He is Lord, and would sooner kill the entire nation of Israel just because they dare say they serve God and not allah. But the radical leftist news will only show you the Hamas side so that the heart God put in you will feel that they are the victims.
Jesus, through His Spirit that comes into the heart of a believer when they confess He is Lord, gives us the power to discern what’s happening in this world and the hope of eternal life where we will live in a perfect world and war will never be known. That is only one of the billions of reasons we need Jesus.
The Facts of Jesus Christ
5 To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ
Paul was shocked that these people who had experienced the love and power of Jesus Christ were so easily persuaded to think otherwise.
Knowing Christ is a personal knowledge and just as somebody else cannot nourish you by eating your food, you cannot be nourished through another man’s wisdom unless it aligns with the Word of God. It’s like eating poison if it doesn’t line up with what the scriptures say. And you’ll never know the truth without reading it for yourself.
I recently hit one of the lowest points in my spiritual life since salvation. I will take the blame because I am personally responsible for myself, but I was sitting beneath preaching in error. How did I figure that out? I left the church.
I was so miserable, so lacking of the truth in the word of God and the worship of God that I was in a pit of depression I could not claw my way out of. Until the very first Sunday in my new church, when the Spirit of God came down up me and I wept through the service in the knowledge that I had allowed myself to be deceived. Not by evil people. But by well intentioned people who believed another gospel. They preached Jesus was Lord and only one way to Heaven. They had that right!!! But I was told that the Spirit of God did not stir emotions. I’ll bet the Pharisees said that too. Did that sound bitter. It was. I am angry at myself for believing that God didn’t want me to worship in freedom. He died so that I could have that freedom!
I would not have known that if I hadn’t got in the right church, and back in the Bible for myself instead of believing what a man said.
That’ll preach brother!