Tag Archives: nothing

The War To End All Wars

Bible Study, , , , ,

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8.

This was the mind-set of the human Jesus!

We will never know what it meant for Him to leave the realm of the spirit, where He reigned with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the indescribable glories of heaven and reduce Himself to the level of a human being. He entered the world He had created, beautiful and perfect in the beginning, only to be corrupted by a ruthless fallen angel and his minions of demonic allies.

Not only that, but the very humans whom He had made in His image to be His beloved family turned against Him. They were no longer family but enemies, filled with the same evil nature as their demonic overlords, rebels to the core, hating Him, defying Him wherever they could and living in the darkness of selfishness and greed.

How did He come? Not as God in a blaze of glory to take vengeance on His alienated family! Not in fiery chariot with a retinue of angelic warriors to make war on the master  Rebel, His own creation none-the-less who had chosen to make war against Him and drag a third of the angels with him. He could have done because He was Lord of all creation and of those who had risen up against Him. He came like every other human being, from the womb of a woman.

Satan had power, but only the power of deception, lies that had no substance and would disappear in a puff of smoke when challenged by the power of truth. Jesus came, not to destroy the devil by sheer force but to unmask him by a life of perfect obedience to the Father as a submissive and obedient Son, and then to die as an evildoer at the hands of His enemies.

No fallen human being has ever lived like that – absorbing every cruel and ruthless attitude and action without resistance or retaliation because the Father willed it; living in perfect harmony with the Father and loving His enemies for the Father’s sake. They skewered His body to a Roman torture stake until every drop of blood leaked from the wounds they had inflicted on Him in an effort to make Him sin, but He remained pure in heart to His very last breath.

Even in His dying moments, He loved those who did it to Him. He embraced with His love a terrified criminal dying next to Him. He forgave His tormentors with His final agonising gasps of breath. He died a violent and unnatural death at the age of thirty three, a young life cut off in His prime because His own people decided He was too good to live. And He won the war because He conquered death and came back from the dead

And Paul said, “I want you to live like that!” Are you crazy? Do you know what you are asking, Paul? You are expecting ordinary, sinful, selfish, self-centred and self-absorbed human beings to live like that? Impossible! No, it’s not, for two very good reasons.

The very nature of God has been implanted in those who have turned their lives over to Him.

“…He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world, caused by evil desires.”  2 Peter 1:4.

The very Spirit who empowered Jesus to be a perfect Son now lives in you, enabling you to be a submissive and obedient son.

“The Spirit you received does not make you a slave so that you live in fear again; rather the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15.

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16.

Paul held Jesus up to the Philippian church, not as a goal beyond their reach, but as a perfect model to follow even if they could not achieve it in this lifetime. It would not happen by trying harder but by gazing longer at Him.

“And we all who, with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Nothing Can Separate Us

Bible Study, , , ,

NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

“As it is written:                                                                                                                                   For your sake we face death all day long;                                                                                         We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life; neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future; nor any powers; neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39.

These are some of the most loved and treasured words in the whole Bible. Over the past eight chapters, Paul built his case for the power and effectiveness of the gospel against the backdrop of real hardship. Believers were alone in the world. Both Jews and Gentiles were against them, and not just mildly antagonistic; they were murderously anti them – to the extent that they martyred Christians everywhere for their faith, even as Paul wrote.

Even as I write, the persecution of believers is escalating in the Middle East. Brutality against people simply because they believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, is driving people from their homes and taking their lives in hundreds and thousands.

Did Paul have an answer to this carnage? Does the gospel really work? Why does God allow these things to happen? Why does He not intervene to protect His people? Where is His power now?

God has given us enough evidence to persuade us of His love for us. He did intervene – but not just to rescue us from physical death. There is so much more to life than that. He sent His only Son to rescue us from eternal death. By dying and rising again, Jesus conquered death. It no longer has the power to hold us in its eternal grip. Yes, His children may have to face a gruesome and horrible death, but it is only the gateway to a new life where there is no more death.

Killing people for their faith is the worst that the enemy can do. All they are doing is facilitating what must happen to us anyway. Jesus viewed His death from another perspective – not as the violent end to His life or as a terrible waste of a young life, but as the planting of a seed. From His death would come a harvest of new life in the many who would believe in Him.

One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, wrote of the martyrdom of believers in his day, “As often as we are mown down by you, the more we grow in numbers; the blood of the Christians is the seed.” (http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/tertullian).

Those who kill Christians think that they are getting rid of them. If only they would realise that every one they plant in the ground will produce a harvest of many more. Since God has done everything necessary to bring us back to Himself, there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can separate us from Him love.

Whatever happens to us, good or bad, can only serve to strengthen our faith in Him and our experience of His faithfulness. God allows us to go through tough experiences, not to punish us or alienate us from Him but to purify our faith and to strengthen our confidence in Him. He surrounds and steadies us in the storms of life so that we can know, without a doubt, that we are His deeply loved children.

Does the gospel work? Yes! A thousand times, yes! Jesus died to remove our sin and reconcile us to the Father. His life in us gives us power to overcome the desire to satisfy fleshly lusts and sets us free from the fear of death. Tragic as it is that believers are being slaughtered for their faith in Jesus, death is not the end but the doorway into God’s immediate presence and the fullness of life.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

One Like Us

Bible Study, , ,

ONE LIKE US 

“‘By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just,  for I seek not to please myself but only Him who sent me. If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favour and I know that His testimony about me is true. You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.'” John 5:30-35 (NIV).

In a single sentence Jesus clears up a misunderstanding that many make about Him. “‘By myself I can do nothing.'” Although He was the Son of God and God in the flesh, He chose to lay aside all the privileges of deity and live on earth as an ordinary man with no power to do anything except through the power of the Holy Spirit. Why did He do that?

He came in the likeness of the first Adam, equipped with the same Holy Spirit who indwelt Adam and with the same potential to fail as Adam had. He faced the same temptations as Adam did and risked the same fate as Adam did, but where Adam sinned by choosing independence from God, Jesus did not.

He chose to live His earthly life in union with the Father and in submission and obedience to Him out of loving reverence for Him. It was not because He was God that He did the things He did; it was because He listened to the Father and did what He was commanded to do. On one occasion He was accused of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub. His response was “If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Matthew 12:28 (NIV).

His union and fellowship with the Father was so close that the very works He did were a testimony to His origin. He was sent by the Father and it was His purpose to do everything the Father told Him in order to please Him and to fulfil His will.

John bore testimony to Jesus because God revealed to him that the One on whom the Spirit descended was the Messiah. Although his testimony was true and valid, it was the testimony of the Father spoken at His baptism, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,”(Mark 1:11b), together with the witness of His works that were the evidence of His true identity as the Son of God.

Truth in a Jewish court of law was established by the evidence of two or three witnesses whose testimony had to agree. Jesus had the undeniable truth from the evidence of the Father’s testimony about Him and the testimony of those who had been healed through His miracles, and yet the religious leaders refused to accept their testimony and believe the truth.

It was not the evidence that was lacking but the prejudice of those who refused to believe the evidence that produced the on-going conflict that eventually led to Jesus’ violent and untimely death. It was not Jesus who was put on trial but His accusers for refusing to weigh up the evidence honestly and arrive at the truth.

He was the Son of God and His power came from God in response to His obedience, which qualified him to be the representative of the human race and to die in the place of those who had failed to live in obedience to the Father. He was the perfect substitute and sacrifice for the whole human race and His death paid the debt we owed the Father for our disobedience and failure to live as sons and daughters of God.

The only way in which we can ever be reconciled to the Father and restored to our place in the family of God is to acknowledge that we owe Him a great debt for our rebellion and to accept the payment of our debt by our elder brother. Jesus took our place so that we can be received back into God’s family as beloved sons and daughters.

Although He paid the debt for the world’s sin, it is only those who respond in faith and obedience who can enjoy all the benefits of being in God’s family.

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Twenty Two

Devotion, , , ,

DAY TWENTY TWO

 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the very nature God,

did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped,

but made Himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death –

even death on a cross !

Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place

and gave Him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

This poem gives us a picture of Jesus full-face; both God and man.  Imagine God, creator, owner and ruler of the universe, choosing to become nobody so that you and I can become somebody!  Get a hold of that!