Body: | Jesus Our Hope!
At Jesus' transfiguration, soon after the start of His earthly ministry,
God spoke saying, "This is my beloved son... hear you Him". Later, as
recorded in John 14: 1-6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the
life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me".
Jesus did not say that he was a way of many ways, a truth of many truths, a
life of many lives. He said He was the way, the truth, and the life. This
means that He is the only way to life everlasting, the only divine truth,
and the only source of life satisfactory to God. This verse proclaims,
also, that there is no other of any circumstance, money, education, or
philosophy that can lead us to God. Thus, Moses, Buddha, Allah, Science and
all other one4rs are excluded. It is as though all blessing, hope, mercy
and goodness were placed by divine will in a room into which there is but
one entrance. There is no way to obtain these blessings except to enter
therein through that one entrance. Truly Jesus is the center of our hope.
He is our only hope.
Through God's grace, His kind and forgiving nature, Jesus was sent to earth
to perform an essential mission. He was to end the law of Moses (the basis
for the Jewish faith) and fulfill the prophets. He completed His mission
for we read in Romans 7: 6-7, "But now we are delivered from the law, that
being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of Spirit,
and not in the oldness of the letter". Because Jesus did away with the Law
of Moses and replaced it with a better way, none of the Old Testament
commandments or laws, including the Ten Commandments, applies to us today.
It is the law of love and liberty (made perfect by Jesus' sacrifice) that
was revealed by Christ and His apostles in the New Testament which we,
today, are to obey. (James 1: 25). It is by our obedience to God's will
through our faith in Christ that puts us into the body of Christ, His
church, and makes us acceptable to God. For details about obedience and its
need and how to be pleasing to Christ, study the message , "The Importance
of Obedience", and "What Must I Do To Be Saved?".
The Christian life can be a glorious, hopeful existence even though the
individual may face war, famine, illness, and other perils common to human
existence. We do not, necessarily, hope for God to bless us with earthly
riches, nor do we expect Him to redeem His promises to us with earthly
blessing. Our hope rests in the promise of an everlasting life near to God
when Christ comes again. These hopes are well stated by the Apostle Paul in
Romans 8: 31-39: "What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us,
who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up
for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh
intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For thy sake we are killed all the day
long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Often men will teach that God is dead
and Christ was but a wholly mortal man and seek to divert us from the truth
of God. But do not be dismayed for Christ is risen; the tomb where He was
laid was empty that Sunday morning so long ago. He then walked among men
for some 40 days thereafter, speaking to them and teaching them. His body
was real for His disciples saw, heard, and ate with Him. For amplification
of these facts study the Bible Research Library topic "Christian
Evidences". Your study of this series will show you that the facts of
Jesus' resurrection are supportable, logical, realistic, and true. Modern
man of whatever level of education and attainment can find exacting proof
that Jesus has both died and then risen. When under persecution, being put
to death for their beliefs, Jesus' early followers died, gladly, a horrible
and painful death which they could have avoided by denying their Saviour.
They did so because they had seen and heard the Christ. They had seen His
miracles which proved Him to be what He claimed Himself to be, the Son of
God. To them Jesus was the center of their hope. Time has not changed
anything. Jesus is, today, the center of our hope, both in this life and
forever after: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
Click Your Choice
Go To Start: WWW.BIBLE.CA
|