Jesus Christ is God’s Word in the flesh, “He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God”, Rev 19:13 CSB. The robe that Jesus wore was dipped in the blood that he sacrificed on the cross for our disobedience. Man’s solutions like religion, ideologies and doctrines not found in the Holy Bible are like fig leaves for disobedience which fall far short of what God requires for a restored relationship with Him. Fig leaves are not the answer to our disobedience, “Then they both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made garments for themselves”, Gen 3:7 CEB. God gave us a sign in the beginning that only a blood sacrifice would satisfy the Lord’s hatred for our disobedience. Only God’s answer is the right answer and Jesus Christ is that answer. The sacrificed needed for our disobedience was made by God first, “The Lord God made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them”, Gen 3:21 CEB. But God doesn’t want us to learn through disobedience, “…do not be children immature, childlike in your thinking; be infants in matters of evil completely innocent and inexperienced, but in your minds be mature adults”, 1 Cor 14:20 AMP.
When we disobey one of two things happens to us. We either hide from God like Adam & Eve because of shame or God allows us to do the things we want based on our own ideas about life which are corrupted by sin, “People did not think it was important, consider it worthwhile or see fit to have a true knowledge of or acknowledge God. So, God abandoned them to allow them to pursue their own worthless thinking by a depraved and corrupted mind to do things they should not do”, Rom 1:28 EXB. Jesus Christ is God’s only begotten son and he was the Creator of everything in the universe (St. John 1:1-18). We are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ because God chose us to be His children before we were born, “And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it”, Eph 1:5 ERV. In Christ we were chosen to be God’s people. God planned for us to be His people, because that is what He wanted. God is the one who makes everything agree with what He wants (Eph 1:11). As brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and children of God we were given the Holy Spirit which allows us to discern God in our lives, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”, 1 Cor 2:14 KJV.
People who do not have God’s Spirit do not accept the things that come from his Spirit. They think these things are foolish. They cannot understand them, because they can only be understood with the Spirit’s help, “Since you are now God’s children, he has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. The Spirit cries out, “Abba, Father.” Gal 4:6 ERV. We recognize God’s Spirit in others when they say, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. The unbeliever, the heathen and those that have rejected the Lord’s doctrine refuse to say this about Jesus Christ. That spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. The one who lives in us is greater than the one who is in the world. The unbelievers belong to the world, so what they say is from the world. The world listens to what the lost say because people prefer darkness rather than light (St. John 3:19). But we are from God. So, people who know God listen to the doctrine of Jesus. But the people who are not from God reject the Lord’s doctrine. This is how we know the difference between the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false (1 John 4:2-6). Also, God makes sure that those that belong to Him will understand His Word and those that belong to the Adversary Satan (the children of Belial) do not understand the truth about Jesus Christ, “Only you can know the secret truth about God’s kingdom. But to those other people I tell everything by using stories. I do this so that ‘They will look and look but never really see; they will listen and listen but never understand. If they saw and understood, they might change and be forgiven.”, Mark 4:11-12 ERV.
The truth about Jesus was a secret from the very beginning until God decided the time was right to share the truth with His creation, “That secret truth has been hidden in him since the beginning of time. He is the one who created everything. His purpose was that all the rulers and powers in the heavenly places will now know the many different ways he shows his wisdom. They will know this because of the church. This agrees with the plan God had since the beginning of time. He did what he planned, and he did it through Christ Jesus our Lord. In Christ we come before God with freedom and without fear. We can do this because of our faith in Christ”, Eph 3:9-12 ERV. At one time God overlooked the fact that people did not understand the truth but not anymore. Now God is telling everyone to change and turn to Him (Acts 17:30). The time for people to give their lives to Jesus Christ is right now! “Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” Listen, think about this: You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a fog. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away”, James 4:13-14 ERV. “If you hear God’s voice today, don’t be stubborn as in the past when you turned against God.” Heb 3:16 ERV. “So, the opportunity is still there for some to enter and enjoy God’s rest. But those who first heard the good news about it did not enter, because they did not obey. So God planned another special day. It is called “today.” He spoke about that day through David a long time later using the words we quoted before: “If you hear God’s voice today, don’t be stubborn.” Heb 4:6-8 ERV.
Submitted By Trustee Stanley Ridley