Here Are Three Reasons You Must Pray For The Unsaved

I belong to a facebook group where different Christian thoughts are shared. Recently, a question was posted which inspired this post. "Will You Pray At All For Someone Who Is Not willing To Submit To Christ?" That's a good question, isn't it? I believe as Christians, we all have experiences of praying for  the salvation of a friend, family member, neighbour etc and it seems the more we pray, and tell them about their need of salvation, their rebellion towards God and Christianity grows. Now, it can indeed get frustrating. So the question whether to continue in prayer for an unwilling, unrepentant sinner is, to be frank, a relevant question. In this post, I seek to answer an emphatic Yes to the question "Will You Pray At All For Someone Who Is Not willing To Submit To Christ?"

Here are my reasons

1: Prayers For The Unsaved Is A Command

In a conversation with His disciples, Jesus commanded them to pray about salvation of souls. "Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38). In these words, we see embedded the necessity of prayer for souls. Why must we pray for labourers? Because "The harvest is plentiful". In other words, there are many people who have to be saved. In 1Timothy 2:1-4, Paul instructs we engage in prayers for the salvation of souls. We don't possess the ability to save anyone. Salvation is of the Lord therefore we must continually entreat Him in prayer to save sinners. Without prayer, our efforts at reaching people for the Lord will be in vain.

After planting and watering, God is the one who gives the increase. Now, if we look at the preceeding verses of Matthew 9, we will get a perfect picture of why Jesus asked for prayers for labourers to be sent: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."(v36).

Herein is the sad state of the unbeliever; the multitudes-crowd without Christ. They are harassed and helpless under the bondage of sin. They are guilty under the wrath of God. They are without a shepherd.  They have no relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ..."Harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd"...that must break every believers' heart to say a word of prayer for the unsaved. They will not admit it; but our Lord's words are true; they are "Harassed and helpless, like sheep without shepherd". They are lost! Out of compassion, our Lord told His disciples; “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”(v37-38). Don't give up praying for the lost.

2: Only God Can Break The Unwilling Heart Of The Sinner

It must not be lost on us as believers, that our salvation is not a smart choice or good decision we made. We are not smarter than our neighbhour who hasn't yet submitted to the Lordship of Christ. The truth is, we are not Christians because we were willing to give our lives to Christ. Jesus said He chose us, not us (John 15:16). In John 6:44, we are also told "No one can come to [Jesus] unless the Father ... draws him. By our own will we cannot be saved (Ezekiel 36:26, John 1:12-13, Roman 9:18). We are Christians because of God's grace.

Before we came to Christ, we were all people who rebelled against God until grace found us. In Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul describes our spiritual deadness prior to coming to Christ. He compares us to that unwilling sinner we are getting tired praying for. He seems to say, "before you came to Christ, you were just like them"; "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind."

That was our state. We were equally "following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience". We were no different from the unwilling unbeliever. The difference now is God's intervention. In verse 4 of Ephesians 2, after our former state has been described, we are told what God did with us: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—"

God showed us mercy. God stepped into out rebellion and broke our resistance. Knowing our former state and how merciful God has been to us, we must be patient and continue in prayer for those who seem unwilling to submit to Christ. Their unwillingness can only be broken by the Spirit of God. Don't give up. Keep praying for them. Their unwillingness is indeed a spiritual battle. Satan has blinded them to the truth. That is the more reason we must pray for them. Only God can rip off their spiritual blindness and shine lights into their hearts.

3: Someone Prayed For Your Salvation

You might not be directly aware. But I am confident your salvation is an answer to somebody's prayers. Your friend, your family member, a church in your community, a Pastor, your school chaplain, a missionary...somebody's prayer definitely has a hand in your salvation. An incident in the Bible readily comes to minpicture comes to mind. In Acts 7, Stephen's martydom by stoning is recorded:

Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen , he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord , do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.(vs58-60)

See two powerful phrases in the verses here. The first is the record that they laid Stephen's garment at the feet of Saul(v58) and secondly Stephen's prayer in v60, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them". Even at the brink of death Stephen still prays for his murderers. Immediately we step into Chapter 8, Saul's name is mentioned again. He has come into the picture. He must be important to the storyline: "And Saul approved of his execution."(v8). Fast foward to Chapter 9 we meet Saul and his encounter on the road to Damascus. He met the Lord and his life was changed. I am very convinced Paul's conversion has a relationship with Stephen's prayer; "Lord , do not hold this sin against them"

I pray you don't get tired praying for anyone's salvation. Continue in prayer and don't give up.

Where Are You Going; Heaven or Hell?

Where are you going? ”Our destination is the place where we are going. In theology it refers to one of two places; either we are going to heaven or we are going to hell. In either case, we cannot cancel the trip. God gives us but two final options. One or the other is our final destination.¹

 When I was growing up, the phrase "Born Again" could be heard on the lips of every zealous young man/woman who had become associated with the charismatic movement. In evangelistic meetings, "Are you Born Again" is the most likely question you will hear. The likely question from proselytising friends was "Are You Born Again?". The expression was ubiquitous. Today, the story is different. The gospel--the preaching of the cross and of eternal life--has vanished into oblivion. In its stead, we have psychology, self-esteem, self-improvement, and prosperity masquerading as gospel on many  pulpits--big and small. Much of the content of our preaching lacks power to convict of sin.

Where are you going? Heaven or Hell? A friend describes it as "a sensitive subject".  Society today will not have anything to do with the idea of heaven or he'll. Did you read hell spelt as he'll? That's an autocorrection I allowed unedited. My smartphone doesn't recognise hell. I have to keep correcting it, anytime I typed it. To be sure what was going on, I typed some words(swear words) and in every instance I type a swear word, my phone autocorrects it. I realised my phone has been programmed to pick hell  as a swear word or so I thought. I think our society doesn't take hell serious. To us it is only a swear word, not a place where God wil punish sinners in eternity. Eternity; either eternal life or damnation cannot be glossed over, though a "sensitive" subject as described by my friend.

Where are you going? Heaven or Hell?  Let me rephrase the question because you might have been growing weary of it. Are you Born Again? In John 3:3, Jesus gave us the--sine qua non---prerequisite of entering the Kingdom of God:"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

The necessity for being Born Again as a condition to enter God's kingdom---eternal life---can be seen from the use of the literal device of repitition: "Truly, Truly...". I believe Jesus meant to drive home clearly a non-negotiable: "You must be Born Again"

The starting point for all of us is to acknowledge we are sinners separated from God by sin brought upon the whole human race by the fall and disobedience of Adam. All, without Christ, are spiritually dead; a consequence of Adam's disobedience. So we all carry in our bloodline Original sin.(Romans 3:11-12, 23, 5:12).

If  we are spiritually dead(Ephesians 2:1)in sin and separated from God, the only way to be reconciled to Him is to pay and appease Him for His wrath. But by ourselves, we cannot make up and pay for our sins. So God the Father placed our sins upon Jesus as an atonement to save  His people from sin and reconcile us to God through faith. “For God so loved the world, [that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "...he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."(2 Corinthians 5:21).

Now, the only way to be reconciled to God is to come to saving faith. We cannot save ourselves(Ephesians 2:8). The only hope for us is  God effecting a regenerating work in our hearts by His Spirit. To be Born Again therefore is a work of God and we have to cry out for mercy to be given a heart that believes (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Would you acknowledge your need of a Saviour? Come just as you are. Forsake your sins. Repent and turn to the Saviour of your soul."But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.(John 1:12-13).

Notes:

1:R. C. Sproul, Chosen By God (1986 Tyndale House Publishers)

Known By God

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God...(Galatians 4:9).

I suspect (this is speculation) when Paul wrote the first line, "But now that you have come to know God...", He paused, shook his head and said "bad theology". Then he continued " or rather to be known by God"

The truth is that, we cannot know God, unless God first enables us to know Him: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." (John 6:44). This truth is consistent with other portions of Scripture.

In Romans 3:11-12, Paul wrote: "no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” John also said "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:10; 19).

Throughout human history, it is God who comes seeking after His own. When Adam blew it, it was God who came seeking for him in the cool of the day. It was God who called Abraham from a pagan home to bless him and make him Father of many nations. While Jacob fled from Esau, it was God who pursued him. When Moses fled Egypt, with all hopes lost, it was God who pursued him. When David was dying under the weight of his adultery with Bathseba and murder of Uriah, it was God who pursued him. When Jonah run  away from the presence of God, it was God who pursued him.

When Jesus met the samaritan woman, it is clear, that it was Jesus who pursued her to give her life:

And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”(John 4:4-7).

Note the first line: "And he had to pass through Samaria" That route, it is believed Jews avoided, because they will have nothing to do with Samaritans. The verse 9 of the narrative explains this best. "The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

"Jews have no dealings with Samaritans". But not this Jew. He was on a mission. He was pursuing a soul. A soul seeking for fulfilment in wrong places. "Give me a drink". He initiated a conversation. If He hadn't, probably this woman would have avoided Him. It is indeed God who always comes to seek us out. He told Jeremiah, "I have loved you with an everlasting love".

When Peter went back fishing, abandoning his call, it was God who pursued him, brought him back and restored him into fellowship. When Paul was causing havoc to the church, it was God who stopped him in His tracks: God pursued him.

God said about us also;

 “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’" (Romans 9:25-26).

We must never come to the point where we pride in knowing God. In all of this, it is "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

What Does Easter Mean To You?

Last year, I gathered a group of friends to pen their thoughts on what Easter means to them. These thoughts were compiled  in an ebook--What Does Easter Mean To You?-- availabe here http://bit.ly/1F9D02Yfor free download.

Now, the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ which we celebrate in this season as Easter is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith. He died and rose again thus reconciling sinful humanity to the Father through the efficacy of the finished work on Calvary. He died in our place as a ransom for our sins. He appeased God's  wrath for the punishment of our sins. (See Isaiah 53:4-6). His death and resurrection paved the way for anyone who will believe in Him to be reconciled to God from sin.

For the Christian, the resurrection of Christ is not a problem. But to the critic and atheist, Christ and Christianity are a hoax. Is the death and resurrection of Christ an historical event? Or just a hoax? Let's attempt to look into the mind of Saul -- a critic―a vicious enemy of the Christian faith― who later in his life embraced "The Way" and became one of its number one advocate. What happened to Saul who later became Paul? He experienced the resurrected Christ. He became an eye witness of what he was opposing. On a journey to Damascus to apprehend Christians and execute them, he met with the Lord Jesus. (Acts 9) This same enemy of Christ and Christianity, later on wrote to defend the resurrection. If Christ did not resurrect from the grave, then Christians have no hope:

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:  And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 1 Corinthians 15:12-15).

Paul's turn around to embrace the gospel can only be based on the fact that he experienced the truth. He also became a witness to the resurrected Christ. This ebook celebrates our redemption by looking at what Easter means from individual perspective.

Blessed Resurrection Sunday.

He is Risen!

Soli Deo Gloria

Love In The Air

I once joined a taxi cab and the driver was playing a song by Toni Braxton(I might be wrong). Here is a line from the music: "Dream lover come rescue me/I need you so desperately" ...."I need you so desperately": That speaks volumes about the heart cry of the human race. Hear more sampled lyrics of songs I believe you can identify: "You always on my mind", "Girl you are my angel" "You make me feel like a natural woman", "Write your name across my heart/I want the world to know you are mine forever" and my recent favorite "Odo Carpenter".

Love, without doubt, I believe is the most sang about subject worldwide. This points to how needy we are as humans, doesn't it? We want to be loved. We want to be appreciated. We want to have a sense of belonging. The loss of a love one shatters us. There is everything right with that. God made it so. That we love one another. We are not islands. We are interdependent on others to achieve a certain level of self-worth and self-acceptance. "Everyone needs somebody”—that is a very popular saying and it is true. No one is an island, we all need relationships and friendship to carry on in life. We are interconnected. We are to be each others keeper. We are to bear the burdens of one another. Acknowledging the place of love in our human interactions is a necessary ingredient for peaceful and harmonious living.

However, despite its universal acceptance, love can be abused when sought for in the wrong places. Human love has its limitations. It can and does fail based on how well we perform and how much we meet up to another person's standards. Human love can also be abused and used as a tool for manipulation. "If you love me...". That's a popular one we can all identify with. Isn't it? When we make imperfect human beings, the source from which we derive all of our emotional well being, then we are unhealthy, vulnerable and heading towards an emotional disaster.

What is love? Where do we take our cues of love from? From music? Soap Opera's? Novels? Love in its Greek origin carries a number of meanings. I will give a brief summary of these:

EROS:  Intimate, sensual and erotic.
STORGE: Natural affection. This is usually love shared amongst family members.
PHILIA: Affection shared purely by friends and can generally be described as platonic.
AGAPE : Unconditional Love.

From the summary of what love is, we can see much of the emphasis on love from society through music, is sadly one sided; Eros,  Romance, Feelings and the sensual. It is not uncommon to find  gospel music mimicking the idea of Romantic love, reducing God's love to good feelings and sensations. With society's fixation on eros - erotic and sensual - God's perfect, unconditional love can easily be lost in our minds. In an age of feelings and sensations, we can easily confuse God's love with how good or bad we feel at a particular moment. In the process, we end up defining God's love by our feelings. But God's love is unconditional, it is perfect. God, the Bible tells us is love. God's love is not just a characteristics of who God is. God Himself is love. God's love is Agape love; selfless and unconditional. It is the highest form of love. Agape love is the kind of love God manifested towards us when Jesus left all of His glory, took upon Him the form of man and died a wretched sinner's life(though He was sinless) to reconcile humanity to God(Philippians 2:6-9, 2 Corinthians 5:21 ). It was love that sent Him to the cross.

Do you need love desperately? Where are you seeking for it? No human, no sexual experience, no entertainment, no drug, no alcoholic beverage, no emotional high, no peers or family can fully give you the love you need to feel wanted, loved and accepted. If you are a believer, you don't have to strive for acceptance, you are already accepted in Christ (Ephesians 1:6, Jeremiah 31:3, 2Thessalonians 2:16 , 1John 3:1 ). God's love is everlasting and nothing can separate us from that love(Romans 8:35 ). You can't do more or less to be loved by God. You are already loved. Is that a licence to live our lives anyhow? No. However, living on this side of eternity in a fallen human body, we will still battle with sin and if we ever lose a battle against sin, we must never despair that God will take His love away from us. Christ' propitiation for our sins is for all sins committed in the past, committed in the present and to be committed in the future. Though He calls us to holy living and holy we must live, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness(1John 1:8-9). We do sin and that is the reality of the fallen human condition. Though saved, we struggle in different areas with the sin problem and its resultant guilt. R.C. Sproul in his book, What Can I Do With My Guilt, wrote these profound words:

The simple truth is that if God forgives us, we are forgiven. That’s an objective state of affairs. Maybe our friends will not forgive us. Maybe our spouses will not forgive us. Maybe society will not forgive us. Maybe the government will not forgive us. But if God forgives us, we are forgiven. That doesn’t mean that we were never guilty. We cannot have forgiveness without real guilt. But forgiveness releases us from the punishment that we justly deserve because of our guilt. Through it, we can be restored to a healthy and loving relationship with God.1

Now, if you are not a Christian the love of God will make no sense to you. You might end up searching for love in the wrong places. The vacuum and emptiness in your heart you seek to fill with other things can only be filled by God's love. That vacuum is just a symptom of a root problem of sin and separation from God. All humanity is condemned under sin(Romans 8:23 ) and until we bring the burden of our sins to Christ, we still stand guilty before God. Repent from your sins and surrender your life to Christ. Be reconciled to Himand let Him give you the love you so desire.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10).

Notes:
1: R.C. Sproul, What Can I Do With My Guilt, ©2011, Reformation Trust Publishing.

Celebrating God's Love

Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the [children of God]...(1 John 3:1).

The phrase "that we" would be a good phrase to look at. John here I believe is painting a picture of how undeserving we are of God's love: ...he is telling his audience and us, of course, the extent of God's love displayed towards us who have come to saving faith in Christ. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us..."

It was love for unworthy sinners that sent Him down to earth to live amongst His own in the midst of rejection and finally died a sinners death to pay for God's wrath. When He cried out "my God, My God why hath thou forsaken me", it was a cry of the pain of rejection. He was Holy without sin, but at that moment He carried the sins of the whole world on His shoulders and God who cannot behold sin, turned His face from His only begotten Son. What an excruciating pain! The thought of separation from the eternal glory of God: " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us..."

Image Courtesy: flickr.com

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us" "There is none righteous, no, not one" "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death". No where in Scripture do we find a single soul laying claim of entitlement to God's love. Probably, the Pharisees did. But you know how Jesus called them right? "Hypocrites, a whitewashed tomb with dead men bones"

"We" are not worthy, but by the sacrifice on calvary, we who have come to Him in faith through Christ Jesus are counted worthy. We were not a people, but now He counts us as people. We were dead in sins and trespasses, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:4-9 ESV)

"Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed on us..." Blessed Day!

Grace: A Total Transformation

And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him” (Acts 22:20).

This is Paul; recounting his former deeds. You admire Paul right? Before he became Paul, he was Saul: a murderer and hated believers with all zeal. He has blood on his hand. Today, if you are looking for the equivalent of Saul(Paul), look at the most gruesome terrorist group around: Saul(Paul) could could be a leader of any one of them.

Image courtesy gracelandchurch.com

You will understand it better when you consider the believers response when they heard of Saul's conversion. They didn't believe it. They took it to be a scam, another strategy to get believers. Ananias even had guts to question Jesus' instructions: "Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name." (Acts 9:13-14). Hear more: "But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? (vs21). This guy Paul doesn't belong in the fold of God's people humanly speaking. He unleashed terror on God's people  yet he was a chosen vessel of the Lord. In response to Ananias who had questioned the Lord earlier, Jesus said "... he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:" (Acts 9:15).

If you still don't get the terror of the guy I am writing about, this would be helpful. I believe Saul's terror rose up to heaven and broke the very heart of Jesus. I am speculating on this one: I believe Jesus stood up and said "I must stop this guys, enough is enough"...so on his way to Damascus to unleash more terror, the Lord brought him low on his feet: "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."(Acts 9:3-6).

Saul the terrorist "trembling and astonished"...the rest of his life he became a disciple of the Lord and what a gift he was to the body of Christ. If you are a believer and you don't admire Paul then you have no good role models. But, before your admiration goes overboard, note that Paul was a work of grace: Total Grace. No wonder he wrote so much about grace than any other. He was a Scholar, he has rights to boasting, but knowing who he was, he said "by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."(1 Corinthians 15:20).

What have you done that you think you are beyond the reach of God's grace? Grace gives a Total Transformation

Seeking For Truth: Lessons From John Chapter 3

12: God Loves You(continued from previous post)

1: The Relationship Between God And The World Part One

For God so loved the world...( John 3:16).

The first introduction of God we see in the Bible is that of a Creator. The Architect of the whole universe. The universe, humans, animals and plants all take their origin from God: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Psalms 24:1 further tells us "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.(Psalms 24:1).

I recently read an article in the 21st-27th October, 2012 edition of the Catholic Standard which speaks volumes about the Creator and His relationship with His creation. In the article, the Cardinal of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl is quoted to have said:

[ a] tsunami of secularism” has washed across the world, leaving in its wake a tendency to deny God’s existence, or to deny that God’s existence is relevant to human thinking and action…. Without God the very understanding of what it means to be human is altered…. Human dignity and human rights flow from the fact that human beings are created in God’s image.

Those words, "Without God the very understanding of what it means to be human is altered….Human dignity and human rights flow from the fact that human beings are created in God’s image." leads  us into a magnificent truth: We are created in the image of God. That is not a thing to be taken frivolously. We, created in His image are the objects of His divine, unwavering love. The love He demonstrated in sending Jesus to the cross to die is directed towards us mere mortals: christian or non-christian, religious or non-religious. Moral or immoral; God loves you.

Even if you don't believe in the existence of God, you might want to pause and consider the complexity of the world including your very being.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.  O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!(Psalms 8:3-9).

Seeking For Truth: Lessons From John Chapter 3

12: God Loves You

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).

Imagine this:

A guest preacher is introduced in your church. He mounts the pulpit. He does all the usual pleasantries, announces his theme; then asks everyone to turn to John 3:16. Most probably, there would be three  responses: One group of  persons would not refer; because they are familiar with the text and can recite it from memory with ease.

Others, still with an attitude of familiarity, will develop apathy towards the preacher: "what has he got to say?". The third response, would be like the second; but apathy would be replaced with fervour: "what has he got to say?"

Again, still with familiarity to the text in mind, try hard to imagine how a child who has spent enough time in a Sunday school class would recite John 3:16. It might go like this(the breaks indicates the sloppiness of child-like speech): For---God--- so--- loved--- the world,--- that he gave--- his only begotten Son,---that whosoever--- believeth in him ---should not perish,--- but have everlasting life.

In its familiarity and imagined child-like reading lies what I will describe as the core and heart of Christian doctrine. In John 3:16, we find a breathtaking synopsis of the entire gospel. If we split these words of Jesus, we will be staring at a stockpile of biblical truth: "God"..."  "love" "the world"..."gave"..."only begotten son"..."believe"..."not perish"..."eternal life". In subsequent posts, I will attempt to tackle this text from a four point approach :

1: The relationship between God and the world
2: God's greatest gift
3: Faith
4: Eternal Life
         

Seeking For Truth: Lessons From John Chapter 3

11: Jesus Christ: God's Remedy For Sin

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:14-15).

Long before He came unto the scene, His life and mission was announced through the Patriarchs and prophets of old. Jacob prophesied about Him: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Genesis 49:10). Isaiah spoke both about His birth, death and sacrifice of atonement: "...Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel"(Isaiah 7:24), "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6).

Jesus didn't just emerge in human history. When John The Baptist first saw Him, He exclaimed: "...Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:26). Every Jew at Jesus' lifetime was waiting in anticipation of the prophesied Messiah, yet, when He showed up; when " He came unto his own,...his own received him not." (John 1:11). Isaiah accurately prophesied His rejection.

In this interaction with Nicodemus, Jesus referenced Scripture to tell Nicodemus more about the Kingdom of God and salvation. The first time I read John 3:14, I startled: "How on earth should Jesus liken Himself to a serpent?".

It will be good to recount what Jesus was referencing. Jesus here drew an analogy from an incident that happened in the wilderness when the Israelites were sojourning to the promise land. The people murmured and complained: they sinned against God. And as punishment for their sins, God sent snakes among them and everyone bitten by a snake died. Having realised the severity of the situation, they cried to God, and Moses was instructed to erect a pole and hang a brass serpent. According to God's instruction, anyone who looked up to the brass serpent, will live. (See Numbers 21:5-9 for full story).

The serpent hanging on a pole or tree indicated punishment for sin and a curse. Scriptures says "...Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). In effect, all those who sinned against God in the wilderness, deserved the full impact of punishment, but God said no, He provided a way of escape by putting "sin" itself on the tree. Remember sin was first introduced into the human race through a serpent.

Jesus , therefore, referencing this incident was describing His own death, His substitutionary death for the sins of humankind.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him".(2 Corinthians 5:21). 

All of us, as members of the human race, like the Israelites in the wilderness have been stung by sin. Before God , we stand guilty of sin until we come to Christ through faith

Seeking For Truth: Lessons From John Chapter 3

9: The Natural World Conveys Spiritual Truth

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (John 3:11-13).

Jesus, what a Master communicator He was. He told stories. He used parables. He drew analogies from the natural environment; all with one agenda: conveying spiritual and eternal Truth. From Childbirth, Death, Aquaculture, Agriculture, Meteorology, Parenting, Light, Darkness, Bakery and we can add on, He had something to say. In this interaction with Nicodemus, we see Jesus drawing an analogy from childbirth to explain spiritual birth---born again.

I said in a previous post that just as our natural birth gives us entrance into the human race, our spiritual birth also gives us entrance into God's Kingdom:

...Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (vs 3).

One fact of the spiritual birth we learn from our natural birth is that just as we don't determine our birth, the spiritual birth is also exclusively a work of God by His Spirit.

...as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13).

Jesus clearly illustrated this when He said in John 6:65, "...no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."  To be born again is a work of God. We can't  save ourselves  unless the Spirit of God has worked on on our hearts; convicted us of sins and regenerated our dead spirits. This places a great demand on us to always pray the Lord convicts the hearts we minister to.

By our own efforts---preaching, writing, singing, choreography, drama and all other means by which we spread the gospel, we cannot save any soul until the Spirit convicts. We can have well laid out and planned sermons. We can have the best stories and analogies, but "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."(John 6:63)

Spiritual truth is not shrouded in total mystery. All around us, God's creation speaks. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." (Psalms 19:1). Hear God and seek Him. His own creation speaks of Him(unless of course the world to you is an "accident"). "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead..." (Romans 1:20).