Chapter 3

Jesus

            Who is this Jesus and what does He mean to us? What does He have to do with our destiny? What if He hadn’t come? Could we still live the Christian life?

            Jesus is the Son of God. He came to earth to show us the way to live a perfect life and then die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Without Him, we would have no destiny that was good. Our destiny would have been eternal separation from God. We could never live the Christian life without Him.

            The Father had a plan for our destiny. He sent the Son to prepare the way for us to fulfill our destiny. The Holy Spirit helps us to accomplish the destiny the Father had planned for us.

What His death accomplished:

            Propitiation for our sins:

1 John 2:2

2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

1 John 4:10

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

            What does this big word, propitiation, mean? The people living during the Old Testament days believed that their gods had to be appeased. Something had to be done by the people to get their gods to change their minds about doing something nasty to the people. So, they sacrificed something … sometimes even their own children. This they hoped would cause their gods to look down with favor upon them.

            In the Tabernacle, the mercy seat upon the ark was also known as the Propitiatory. When the High Priest sprinkled blood on the mercy seat once a year, God propitiated … changed His mind … about what He wanted to do to the children of Israel. In fact in the Septuagint, in certain places where The King James says that God repented, the Greek word is the one used for propitiated.

            We deserved to be condemned to eternal separation from God. He wanted to wipe us out. Something had to be done to get Him to change His mind. That something was for His only begotten Son to die in our place. It wasn’t good enough to sacrifice a sinful individual. The Sacrificial Lamb had to have lived a sinless life. When Jesus died on the cross, God’s justice was appeased and He propitiated … changed His mind … about what He wanted to do to us.

            Our destiny was the Lake of Fire, but Jesus’ death changed that destiny into one of eternal life.

If you could hear God speak to you, I believe this is what He would say:

            "My Son died for you. He took your place. It should have been you, My children, who died; but He desired to take your place … to be your sacrifice to bring you into My presence. It is not for you to question why, but to enjoy the benefits He obtained for you. He did it all that you might have life everlasting. It was not His desire that you have to suffer like He did. He felt that it was better for Him to suffer once for all rather than all having to suffer as He did.”

            32. Jesus died on the cross for my sins so that God would change His mind about what I deserved. Instead of death I might have eternal life.

Cleanses our conscience from dead works:         

             

Hebrews 9:14

14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

            It wasn’t through the blood of an animal that was physically perfect which was offered for our sins. It was through the blood of the spiritually perfect Son that we were cleansed. The Jews tried to come to God through works, but that was not what He wanted. It isn’t enough to come before God. There had to be the death of someone who had never sinned in order to pave the way for us. Because of that, we don’t have to “do” anything to come to God. Jesus did everything necessary to bring us into the presence of Almighty God. Our conscience is clean. Our old man did the deed. We are new creatures in Christ.

            We do serve the living God in a living way. We do works, not to gain acceptance, but because we have been accepted by Him.

If you could hear God speak to you, I believe this is what He would say:

            "You cannot become good enough to come unto Me. You cannot do good enough to come unto Me. You can come unto Me because of what My Son accomplished for you. You can walk in My ways and talk in My way as you allow Me to control your life. You will accomplish much for Me if you will allow Me full access to your life. I will guide you into the paths of glory for My Name’s sake. You can do much in Me. You cannot do anything worthwhile outside of Me. No matter how much you try, it is all in vain when it is outside of Me.”

            31. My conscience is clean through the blood of the perfect Son and I can serve God in the Spirit because I want to please Him.       

     

            We have such a special relationship with our Father God. We are truly His children and as we grow in Christ, we take on more and more attributes of our Heavenly Father. We behave like Him because we become like Him. We have nothing to fear from our Father and we can be certain that He will keep and take care of us. It is our destiny as His children. We can have no other life than that of His pleasure.

Put His Laws into our minds and wrote them on our hearts.

             

Hebrews 8:10-12

10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

After those days, says the Lord:

I will put My laws into their minds,

And I will write them on their hearts.

And I will be their God,

And they shall be My people.

11 “And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen,

And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

For all will know Me,

From the least to the greatest of them.

12 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities,

And I will remember their sins no more.”

            Students in college are trying to put math formulas into their minds. Sometimes it seems like they just don’t stick. But God said that He would Himself write His laws, not only into our minds but also on our hearts. It won’t be like trying to obey the laws of the land where we live. Sometimes we don’t agree with those laws but we obey them just to keep from getting into trouble. With God’s laws, it’s not just to keep from getting into trouble. We keep them because we want to keep them. They are written on our hearts. We have a heart that is after God … that seeks Him earnestly and desires to do His will and please Him. Some people, even church goers, know about the Lord, but we personally know Him.

            These verses also say that He won’t remember our sins any more. Sometimes people “forgive” those who do something bad to them, but they won’t forget it. In the back of their minds, they are always thinking, “He/she better not do that again to me!” What if God treated us that way? We’d be in real trouble. He not only forgives our trespasses, He also forgets them.

If you could hear God speak to you, I believe this is what He would say:

            "My children, I have written My heart upon your heart and My mind upon your mind. What you feel is what I feel. What you think is what I think. That is because I planted within you that Holy Seed of My Word and My Spirit. You will know what you are to do when you look within you to My Spirit. He will guide you into all the truth for He will speak to you what I would have you to know and to do. You cannot go wrong by following His direction. What I have written, I have written. It shall prevail in your life as you allow it to.”

            30. God wrote His laws into my mind and on my heart. My heart desires to do His will

Refuge:

Hebrews 6:17-18

17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,

18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

            There’s a storm out there and we need a place to take refuge from the storm. God said, “Trust in Me to take care of you in the midst of a storm.” It’s like a dad saying to his child, “Jump. I’ll catch you.” Can we trust Him? These verses say we can. God promised. That should be enough for us. Then He gave His word (interposed with an oath). This is better than pinky swear. He can’t lie. Humans can lie. They have to choose to tell the truth. It’s not even possible for Him to lie. Jesus said that the devil is the father of lies; so how could God even be tempted to lie about anything? We can take a strong grip on the hope He set before us. We can know, that we know, that we know He will take care of us in the midst of the storm. Come in out of the storm and trust in Him to take care of everything.

If you could hear God speak to you, I believe this is what He would say:

            "You can trust Me, My children. I will shelter you from the storm. You can hide beneath the shadow of My wings, and I will protect you from the evil one. You can trust Me to take care of you in all situations. Do not depend on the world or the things of the world to protect you. You cannot trust the world for it will even turn on its own. But I will never turn on My own. I will always protect My own from the evils of the world. Do not despair. I am on your side and will always be there to protect you.”

            29. God is my refuge and my strength. What can man do to me? I can depend on Him to take care of me because He promised He would.