Good Thursday morning! It is a new day, what adventure shall we go on today? When was the last time you heard or read from someone who knew Scripture, but didn't know Jesus? Probably fairly recently, if not just yesterday. Colleges and universities, at least here in America, are famous/infamous for this depending upon your point of view. Professors of religion or religious studies can quote chapter and verse from the Bible all day long. They can turn and do the same from ancient Greek mythology, the Roman pantheon, Norse legends, the Abythian Trunge Cycle... actually I made that last one up, but it probably comes much too close to the truth. Many scholars know the Bible far better than I do, and yet when you hear or read their words it is obvious that something is missing. These non-believing smart folks do like what Jesus had to say for the most part, especially the part where Jesus told everyone to be nice, listen to your teacher, and be quiet in class. Don't quite recall Jesus saying exactly that? That's the problem.
If a person reads the scriptures, but fails to see the One the scriptures are all about, he will tend to read what he wants to hear in the words of Jesus. Naturally a professor dreams of that class where the students are nice to him and each other, quiet when he is speaking, and attentive to his every word. We can fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus told everyone to be nice to 'me' in much the same way. Jesus did say to love one another and spoke the Golden Rule, but both of those start with 'me', as opposed to serving 'me'. And service to each other in the love of Christ does not always mean that we are nice to each other. We can correct each other gently and humbly, but if we only wanted to be nice then the correction part would have to be left out. A person can be nice to me and let me continue to be wrong on some point, or he can be loving to me and gently correct my errors. Jesus often lovingly corrected the Pharisees, and just as often they didn't think that he had been very nice to them.
Jesus once called some Jewish leaders the spawn of Satan; now that's not very nice, is it? Jesus said it in a more loving way than I did though. Jesus told them that they were the children of their father the Devil. This is not nice either, but is more gentle than 'spawn of Satan'. When we start out in sin, as everyone does, we are children of our father the Devil. When we believe in Jesus and receive his salvation, we are adopted as children of the Father in Heaven, who is God. First, we must surrender to Jesus and give our lives to Him. Anyone who has a wealth of knowledge or, sorry about this, a wealth of wealth, has a hard time surrendering to anyone, much less a man who lived a couple thousand years ago and started another religion. Of course you know and I know that Jesus didn't come to start a religion. The world already had a host of religions when Jesus arrived.
Jesus gave us a choice - believe in Him and be saved, or choose the world and be lost. He also said that the second option isn't really a choice so much as a condition we are all in from the start. Before we came to believe in Jesus, we didn't like that choice either. In fact, we feared the consequences of sin even if we didn't believe in the cure for it. Those who know the Bible but believe it is just another religious system don't like that Jesus said that Hell is a reality. It is much easier to believe in a loving God who surely wouldn't send nice people to Hell, than it is to believe in a just God who sent His Son to say that you are condemned already for not believing in the Son. No one likes to hear that we are all born in sin, a terminal condition that not one or all of us together has the cure for. Yet we also hesitate when confronted with the One who will save us when we surrender to His lordship. How did Jesus make this possible? He paid the penalty that God's justice demanded for our sin. Praise the Lord for the sacrifice of Jesus. And praise God for a young lady who was willing to serve as the mother of Christ.
God bless us all this day!
Bucky
No comments:
Post a Comment