There are many encouraging things to share. The most encouraging ones are those which most connect with our needs at the time. This is why there are times when you and your best friend can read the same article with the effect that one of you thinks it is the greatest article and the other may simply think it is interesting. The difference is the need you each have at that moment for what is being shared in the article.
Today, I want to share something that is applicable for all people everywhere. It is regarding the deepest concern for all of us. It is filled with the best news any of us could ever receive.
We are all faced with an eternal conundrum. We have each done things we should not have done or not done what we should have. This places us in a precarious position. We can all think of a time when we have lied, cheated, stolen, acted in anger toward others, wanted what others have, and dishonored our parents. We will give an account of our lives and choices to the One Who created us and gave us life. As the Creator of the universe, it is His rules and His way.
This could be scary to think about: God could be a menacing tyrant acting upon any whim, or a weak figure head acting in favoritism toward some special people, or an unjust despot clearing the guilty and abusing the weak. Thankfully, He is none of these.
The Bible reveals that in some ways He is far more fearsome: perfect, holy, just, righteous, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-glorious. As people who have all acted in ways we should not have (or thought things we should not have, or had wrong attitudes toward others), these aspects of God’s character leave us with no room for hope when we die and face Him to give our account. He knows all of things you and I have wrongly done, wrongly thought, wrongly said, and had a wrong attitude toward. He is fully aware of our account before we even speak of any of it. And He has explained that even one of these wrong actions deserves eternal, conscious punishment with no release because of how these wrong actions (words, thoughts, attitudes) are in direct opposition to His character. His perfection allows no place for imperfection. His holiness and righteousness allow no room for our wrong actions of unrighteousness (not acting rightly). His justice demands that all of these wrong deeds be dealt with fully and completely. His all-powerful nature means He has the power over us to enact justice upon us whether we are compliant or not.
The Bible also reveals some other characteristics of God, which are equally true of Him: love, mercy, grace, patience, forgiveness. These are not in contrast to the other characteristics we mentioned. His perfection includes being perfect in love, mercy, and grace. His justice likewise includes being just in His love, patience, and forgiveness. Likewise, His love includes being loving in His justice, righteousness, and power. God knows (as the All-knowing One) that you and I are incapable of ever fully paying for our wrong actions. God’s message to us, the Bible, tells us that we can best be described as dead in our sin (sin = all of these wrong acts, deeds, thoughts, plans, words, attitudes, emotions, etc.). Sin so fills us that it defines us – such that even our good deeds and kindnesses toward others do not change this dead nature of sin. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses (sins), made us alive together with Christ (Jesus) – by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1-5) This means that God’s great love, mercy, and grace were enacted in Jesus to fulfill his requirements of perfection, righteousness, and justice for us.
In another passage in the Bible, we are told that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord (Master, King, Boss, etc.) and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from grave, we will be saved. Then it tells us that anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:9-10) So, as we realize that we have no hope because we have willfully chosen to disobey the Creator, God, we may call out to Jesus to be rescued from the just punishment we deserve.
So what did Jesus do that would rescue us? Jesus, being fully God the Son, came to earth as a baby and grew up, living approximately 33 years on this earth. He never sinned in his entire life – not when He was a toddler in the “Terrible Twos”, not as a teenager, not when whacking his finger with a hammer while he learned his earthly adoptive father’s carpentry trade, not when wronged by others though He was innocent. His perfect life fulfilled God the Father’s righteous requirement of perfect obedience. He was then sentenced to the death penalty by the leaders of His community. This death was by way of the cross – a cruel instrument of tortuous death used for capital punishment by the Roman Empire. Hanging upon the cross, Jesus suffered physically as any other person would, but He also had laid upon Him all the sins of those who would believe in Him for salvation. God the Father’s wrath against that sin was poured upon Jesus. At the moment of Jesus’s death, He declared, “It is finished!” He was buried in a tomb and rose from the grave three days later. Over the next 40 days, there were many witnesses to His physical resurrection from the grave (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-8).
The Apostle Paul explains what Jesus did in 1 Corinthians 5:18-21. God the Father reconciled us to Himself though we are sinners, rebels against His rule. Through Jesus Christ, our sins are not counted against us because God made Jesus, the Innocent One, to be sin on our behalf so that we would be made righteous – given Jesus’s perfect obedience as ours. Believing in Jesus’s resurrection includes understanding your need for forgiveness for your sins and for an exchange in your life to have the righteousness of Jesus in order to be reconciled to God, to have a new relationship as a child of God rather than an enemy of God.
I have received this amazing gift from God. My greatest need has been solved by God through His Son Jesus. I invite you to join me in receiving this amazing gift. Call upon the Lord Jesus to be rescued, confessing Him to be your lord (master, king, boss), believing in His perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection.
Romans 10:13 – “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Scripture references are taken from the ESV Bible (English Standard Version).