Our fear rests in knowing full well what we have done. We can try and justify our lives as good enough to have earned the blessing of God by getting defensive and zeroing in on our successes that we completely ignore our flaws, which have grown at a tremendous rate. Or we do the opposite and focus solely on our sins and paint the picture that God is merely trying to rid the world of sin and that God only sees our sin. Both of these are far from the truth.
John The Baptist had sought to prepare the hearts and minds of those in the world for the coming of the Savior. With the birth of Jesus the stage was set for the work of the Messiah. 30 years into the His life, the ministry of Jesus Christ was inaugurated by His baptism. At the outset, Luke clearly lays out the mission and direction of Jesus Christ. Luke shows where Christ stood in the grand scheme of eternity and the biblical narrative. As the Spirit of God descends on Jesus, in the physical form of a dove, the Father voice commandingly booms from heaven. The fullness of God, all three persons of the Trinity have converged in this moment to rescue mankind.
Jesus Christ is an allergy to the earthly desire. When two incompatible things compete with one another, only one can remain. The other will be destroyed or leave. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are not immune from the same persecution he faced. While the world makes us a Pariah for following Christ, we Yet, we can take heart and hold to the confidence rooted in our allegiance with the God who is victorious.
When two things are yoked together, they direct the path of the other one. This only works when the two are moving in unison together. When they are not, it is a source of conflict and tension as the two cannot go in different directions. For the believer and the unbeliever, our flesh still craves to go the direction of sin, running counter to our new life.
Hope sustains us during the times we feel like a Pariah. For all the effort that churches put into branding, messaging, and all the other accoutrements, 1 Corinthians 13 makes it abundantly clear that only three things remain; faith, hope, and love. There are the foundation of our salvation and of the Gospel.
Hope sustains us during the times we feel like a Pariah. For all the effort that churches put into branding, messaging, and all the other accoutrements, 1 Corinthians 13 makes it abundantly clear that only three things remain; faith, hope, and love. There are the foundation of our salvation and of the Gospel.
John the Baptist speaks with a strength and faith that surpasses even the strongest of the Pharisees and religious leaders of his time. He wastes no time and directly piercing the heart with his strong rhetoric and direct preaching. He calls the religious leaders a brood of vipers for failing to see the story of faith unfolding right before them. As difficult as this may have been, John was able to speak with clarity and boldness as one who spoke empowered by the faith in Jesus Christ.
God, after paving a way, created a home. The new heaven and the new earth would be home for those who follow Christ. Whatever pain we feel, whatever struggles we endure, are temporary. Our true hope rests in the unchanging and everlasting God who has secured our eternity. We can hold our heads high and focus our gaze on the promise and hope of our everlasting.
God’s goal is not to merely keep us from sinning. This missing the grand purpose of Christ’s coming. Just as wiping the dirt of clothes does not make them clean, getting us to stop sinning does not mean we are sanctified. The purpose of Christ’s coming was to return us to Him, fully and completely. Our sin separated us from the holiness of God. The hope in our victory over sin rests fully in the work of Jesus Christ having already conquered sin.
Everyone has someone in their life that they are concerned about their faith. God places people in our life that we either are concerned about their salvation or eagerly seeking to see the evidence of their faith lived out. Many times, these are the people that God has given us for the long haul. The story won’t be that a testimony was shared one time and then everything became fine. This will be a longstanding, persistent relationship where the affect of God is felt overtime, even though it may not be seen immediately.
