"This is how God loved the world: He gave [us Jesus]...." (John 3:16)
I am in the first 11 chapters of John today. If most were to hear someone today claim what Jesus claimed, they would accuse him of lunacy, egocentricity, and/or certifiably insane. Indeed, many in the First Century said, "He has lost His senses"(NASB). Someone once said, "We cannot be neutral about the claims of Christ, and here are some of them: "....All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father....If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me....Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you....Before Abraham was, I Am....I and the Father are one....I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."
Some have asked over the years why I speak and write so much of Jesus. The answer is really quite simple. Jesus has saved me, is saving me, and will continue to save me. I was lost; if Paul said, "that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief," there then must be a ranking above "chief" for me. Tomorrow will be the 45th anniversary of our son, Stephen's passing. I could not go on having lost him without the sustaining love, presence, power, and peace, Who is Jesus. So, you see, Jesus saves, is saving, and will continue to save.
If the "modern" Church does not write about, preach about, sing about Jesus, " you have no life in you." Christendom is losing adherents daily at an alarming rate. There may be many reasons for this. Perhaps one of the worst is that we have presented religious formulae to the world rather than, "....no one comes to the Father, but by Me."
I tell you most assuredly, my friend, no one on Planet Earth or in the Universe knows or even begins to understand God apart from Jesus Christ. I again share what Pascal wrote, " We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion with God is taken away....Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves." Pascal, as with those referred to in Revelation 12, overcame, "....by the Word to which (he) bore witness," and that Word is Jesus Christ.
Father, in Jesus' Name, keep me ever in Your purposes. Amen.
I am in the first 11 chapters of John today. If most were to hear someone today claim what Jesus claimed, they would accuse him of lunacy, egocentricity, and/or certifiably insane. Indeed, many in the First Century said, "He has lost His senses"(NASB). Someone once said, "We cannot be neutral about the claims of Christ, and here are some of them: "....All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father....If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me....Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you....Before Abraham was, I Am....I and the Father are one....I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."
Some have asked over the years why I speak and write so much of Jesus. The answer is really quite simple. Jesus has saved me, is saving me, and will continue to save me. I was lost; if Paul said, "that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief," there then must be a ranking above "chief" for me. Tomorrow will be the 45th anniversary of our son, Stephen's passing. I could not go on having lost him without the sustaining love, presence, power, and peace, Who is Jesus. So, you see, Jesus saves, is saving, and will continue to save.
If the "modern" Church does not write about, preach about, sing about Jesus, " you have no life in you." Christendom is losing adherents daily at an alarming rate. There may be many reasons for this. Perhaps one of the worst is that we have presented religious formulae to the world rather than, "....no one comes to the Father, but by Me."
I tell you most assuredly, my friend, no one on Planet Earth or in the Universe knows or even begins to understand God apart from Jesus Christ. I again share what Pascal wrote, " We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion with God is taken away....Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves." Pascal, as with those referred to in Revelation 12, overcame, "....by the Word to which (he) bore witness," and that Word is Jesus Christ.
Father, in Jesus' Name, keep me ever in Your purposes. Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
