Opportunity Includes Sacrifice

Most people would like to live forever in Paradise a heavenly place of delight and never ending glory. There is an opportunity for every human ever born to find themselves entering such a place when they leave this old world. The Scripture says; He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Rev 21:3-4 (NLT) This is a wonderful place with a real family but just like the opportunities in this world it will require sacrifice. This sacrifice is misunderstood by most people today. It is never something that can be gathered up and presented to God like they did in the old days. Today the people must give themselves to God. In other words, we must obey the Savior every day of our life. Don’t be confused and think our obedience is taking us to Heaven because the Bible simply says it is “our reasonable service” Rom 12:1. No one enters heaven by their merits or individually. We will all enter heaven on the same day as members of one big family of God.

God created humans along with our universe so that He could choose a family to live forever with Him. This seems to be hard for some people to believe. A fallen creature called the Devil has been allowed to test us because God wants His family to learn to love Him more than life itself. The Devil hates us and wants us to be unfaithful to God. Our response to testing reveals how much love we have for God. People should not focus on the testing but on the overcoming of it. Since we are a family there is a responsibility to help each other. Paul sent help to God’s family; we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our brother and God’s co-worker in proclaiming the Good News of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through. But you know that we are destined for such troubles. 1 Thess 3:2-3 (NLT) When we overcome our troubles it makes our determination to love God stronger. But if we go through life without sacrificing ourselves for the plans of God, we will miss our opportunity to be part of His great family.

The Gospel message divides the people of this world into two categories. There are those who obey God and, of course, those who don’t. The Scripture says that God wants the people in His family to be like His first Son. We know that God’s son came to earth and lived in obedience to His Father. Our obedience will cause us some suffering but we are comforted;  Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say. 2 Thess 2:16-17 (NLT) It seems odd to the people of the world because they don’t believe but every obedient Christian is comforted by God’s grace. There is a great peace that comes into our life. Jesus is the master of those who obey God and the Devil is the master of all people that do not obey. Some people do not think it is fair to say that the Devil is their master. They simply fail to realize that all their sin makes them a child of the evil one who opposes God. In other words, if you are not serving the Almighty you are automatically against Him and His family.

The greatest opportunity in all of history was hidden for thousands of years until Jesus came to earth. Paul said; Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong, just as my Good News says. This message about Jesus Christ has revealed his plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time. But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him. Romans 16:25-26 (NLT) This Gospel message can make people strong enough to live life the way that Jesus did. The sacrifice of our normal life frightens many people but God will supply the power that is needed. All of the necessary Good News is available for us today but many people will not yield their life to the Master of the righteous people. They act as if God’s plans were still a secret today. The plan is revealed in the Bible by the Spirit Himself. The Spirit will also give us the power to endure anything in this world until Jesus calls for us. My friends, the victory is well worth the struggle.

Part of our sacrifice is to be concerned about our brothers and sisters in the Lord. After all it is the family of the Almighty and we should have responsibilities. The book of the Acts gives us the idea; Where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. Acts 14:22 (NLT) Sometimes it is only one person that we encourage and they go to others; Silas, and as he left, the believers entrusted him to the Lord’s gracious care. Then he traveled throughout Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there. Acts 15:40-41 Our faith is always in need of help from others; Paul went back through Galatia and Phrygia, visiting and strengthening all the believers. Acts 18:23 (NLT) We all become members of one big family and it is very important for us to help each other. This is true of any family so it must also be important to the family of God. Paul loved his opportunity to serve God;  For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours. Romans 1:11-12

Our allegiance and obedience will bring glory to God and in turn we will someday share the glory of our Savior. What a wonderful Gospel we have been given. It was all planned long ago and all those that serve the Lord are privileged. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. Romans 8:29-30 (NLT) Every Christian looks forward to the revealing of the Glory some day. We can make no sacrifice that shares even a small part of the greatness of God’s glory. However, the Lord just loves our pitiful efforts to please Him. The Father has chosen those that are like His Son to live with Him. Have we done everything we can to live like the Son and help others to do the same? The Lord has provided many gifts to help us serve Him but we must receive them as our own. This opportunity is certainly worth our sacrifice.

I Want to See Jesus

We need a movie that demonstrates to the world how much some people want to see Jesus. Maybe a story about the rich man that was willing to humiliate himself so much, that he climbed up in a tree beside a busy road. He sat in the tree for a long time just hoping for a glimpse of the popular and powerful Man who came from God. It would be terrific if the people of this country wanted to see Jesus as desperately as did this man, Zacchaeus. The purpose of Christianity is the removal of the ways of the world from a person’s life and to replace them with the ways of God. The only way this will ever happen is for an individual to have the desire to see Jesus become real in their own life. This can be understood once we realize that Jesus is the only bridge between God and humans. There are many other reasons to love Jesus but we must begin by understanding that there is no other way to live eternally with God.

Although Jesus left this world 2000 years ago and returned to heaven there is still a wonderful way that we can see Him. Jesus explained it to His disciples on the night before his death. If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. John 14:15-17 (NLT) Because the Spirit of Jesus can now move into our soul and stay with us forever, the ability to see Jesus spiritually will be the result. After we are born-again we visualize Jesus only faintly. As the years of learning about Him go past, we see Him more clearly. Learning his behaviors will even begin to make us look more like Him. Paul said; Since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Romans 6:8-9 “Since we died with Christ” is the way Paul says to remove the ways of the world from our Christian life. Of course, “we live with Him” means that our new life will have the ways of God in it because of the Spirit of Jesus.

Our desire to see Jesus will cause us to invite the Spirit daily to teach us about His ways. During the last talk of His life, the Savior said; I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. John 14:25-26 (NLT) This translation uses the word “Advocate” but the original language says "Encourager". A real good teacher is one who encourages his students. Some people seem to think that the teachings of God are harsh but they are mistaken. When we get to know the Savior and the reason for our lessons they will look different to us. Everything the Spirit brings into us is straight from Jesus Christ our Savior because it is His Spirit. This is why Jesus looks more and more real to a dedicated Christian. How amazing it is to know that Jesus is in us when we wake up in the morning and He is in us when we lay down at night. It is not difficult to live for Jesus when we are aware of His presence every minute of the day.

Truth is very valuable but in this world it is very rare. Because Jesus is the truth of God we will certainly never see our Savior until we understand the truth. This next verse says that the encourager is the Spirit of truth. The spirit of Jesus would need to be the Spirit of Truth.  But I will send you the Advocate —the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me (Jesus). John 15:26 (NLT) The Spirit has many other jobs here on earth but God sent Him with this one new job. Living inside of a human 24/7 was never done before Jesus returned as Savior to His throne in Heaven. Our Creator had determined that humans on their own could not stand up to the Devil’s tricks. Adam and Eve had failed and so does every person born since. There is no way that God can be understood until we accept that He is three persons in perfect agreement about everything. Jesus taught that He was completely in the Father and that also that we are to be perfectly in Jesus. This is why the Holy Spirit is so important to us. What a privilege it is to allow God into our life.

The world uses the word possessed in a negative way. Although the Devil has ruined this word like so many other things, it still has a meaning that allows it to be used in a positive way. Humans can have a powerful feeling about something and continue to maintain control over themselves. This is how the Spirit of Jesus possesses us. We allow God to bring His powerful influence for righteousness into us but the control of our actions is our responsibility. God never takes away our responsibility for the actions of our life. Here is the description of the new job given to the Holy Spirit. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. John 16:7-8 (NLT) To accomplish these three things the Spirit has been placed into Christians. It seems frustrating to us when we must accomplish a task through other people because they have a mind of their own. However, the Spirit has been asked to tell people about these three things through Christians.

The point is that Christians have the privilege to be part of God’s work on earth. Maybe if we understood this we would behave differently. In other words we use the influence of the Spirit to inspire us into activities for Jesus. Jesus did say that we would do the same things that He did while on earth. When other people ask about the motivation for our life we can respond by saying the righteous power of God causes us work and the result is our hope for eternity. When we are convinced that Jesus is the only way into Heaven and His Spirit is the inspiration of our life, He becomes real to us. This happens when we really want to see Jesus. Praise God.