9. IMAGINE WHY BELIEVING IN JESUS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Why we need Jesus
“Christ is
the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at
all and is supreme over all creation. Christ is the one through whom God
created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things you can see and the
things we can’t see—kings, kingdoms, rulers and authorities. Everything has
been created through him and for him. He existed before everything else began,
and he holds all creation together” (Colossians 15:17NLT).
We only need to listen to or watch the news to know we need
Jesus.
So many worrisome things are occurring, even beyond economic
problems, unemployment, staggering national debt, terrorists’ bombings and
nations who hate America accumulating nuclear bombs.
I worry about the spiritual state of our nation, where it
seems everyone—even those who claim to be Christians—use the Lord’s name in
vain for every emotion under the sun.
Furthermore,
secularism (yes, it used to be listed among religions in encyclopedias) has
become the religion of the United States, and freedom of religion is in danger.
Where will you fit in these perilous times?
The Bible describes the future this way:
“This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection,
trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are
good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God”
(2 Timothy 3:1-4)
IMAGINE “BEAMED UP” WITH THE CHURCH
Do you love God? Do you believe Jesus will be involved in
your future as prophesies about His catching away of the church and the second
coming indicate?
From 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that
we which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord.”
His first coming certainly impacted the world.
When I think of Jesus and his sacrifice to come to earth, I
think of the big, husky evangelist who was a dinner guest at a home the same
time we were eating there. The man piled his plate high with delicious food and
then started devouring it.
“When you look at me now,” he said between chomps, knowing
we all watched, “it’s hard to realize I was once helpless and flat on my back.”
“You were?” someone asked in amazement.
He grinned. “Yes. I was a baby once.”
It is even more amazing to realize the Lord Jesus Christ—who
was there when the universe was created (the verse above and John 1)—gave up
all his supernatural strength and wisdom to become a baby.
Last Christmas when I pondered with amazement the thought
that He would become completely helpless—with his whole existence dependent
upon humans—I realized it wasn’t so amazing after all. Jesus, as God the Son,[1]
downloaded the instincts and programmed parents’ brains so a baby’s cry would
be so irritating they would do almost anything to stop the sound. They would
offer food. They would change the diaper. They would hold the infant.
He also knew parents’ love is so deep they want to see their
offspring tenderly and adequately cared for.
[1] There is
only one God, but in three persons known as the Trinity—God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit, and they are eternal with no beginning and no end.
Jesus said He and Father are one and if you know Him, we also know the Father.
See John 14:5-12.
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