Sunday, November 22, 2015

JUST JESUS

By Shirley Wiggins

“But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.’”  Matthew 14:27 NKJV.

When it seems that you’ve been asked to carry a heavier burden longer than many others, that is only Jesus building you a bigger blessing through a specific challenge in life.
When the path you’ve planned for your life takes a turn, Jesus just wants to show you an adventurous, more scenic route.  Relax and look for Him every day.  Watch for the curves and lean into Him, letting Him thrill your soul with His surprises along the way. 

 You will never regret following Him to the place He will lead you, nor the route He chooses for you.

When we are young, life is easy to plan, but grows harder to live it out day by day.  Life is filled with disappointments and broken expectations, ranging from the small and petty to sudden crises and terrible tragedies.
When the life we planned is not the life we are living, we may have the assurance that God is aware of our dismay, our dread, and even on occasion our outright fear.

And, yet down through the ages of time, God’s instructions for His people remains constant and unchanged:
Do not be afraid, neither let your heart be troubled---you believe in God, believe also in Jesus and let His Holy Spirit guide you through every temporary dark place as you journey through life with Jesus by your side all the way! 

God is faithful and He is trustworthy.  He works in multiple and magnificent ways to reassure His people that He is committed to our care and provision for every need that will ever arise in life.
Sin caused the fall of God’s perfectly created world and how and why and precisely when, no human can explain.  But life goes on, and people are born and people die every single day since the beginning of time, which began when God determined that it would.

God is unexplainable, but not unapproachable.  However, He is only approachable in the way He determines.  No one comes to the Father (God) except through Jesus Christ. 
God is the one critical element in everything imaginable.  He must be since He has no beginning and no end.  He is the Beginning and the Ending – “Alpha and Omega.”

His existence is not affected by whether you believe in His existence or not; He is not threatened by unbelief or disbelief.  He is.  He was. He is to come.
And, yet, He has gone to great lengths to reveal Himself to humans.  That is His history, which has been meticulously recorded in the Book named The Holy Bible.  Generations of people have come and gone from the face of the Earth, many of whom have believed in Him, and some have even known Him personally.  Others  have chosen not to believe in Him, refusing to know Him, rejecting even the idea of His existence.

Still others choose even today to deny Him, actively working to discourage others from coming to know Him, resorting to the twisting and denying of His Truth, and persecuting those who do know Him.
None of this changes the Truth of Who God is, nor does it interrupt His ongoing purpose-filled plan for revealing Himself to His created beings.  Those who believe in Him, and believe His Word choose to know Him and receive His active presence in our lives.

Believers embrace His Word and draw strength from Him through His written Word and His Holy Spirit who resides inside our bodies, which His Word calls His (God’s) “temple.”
Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  (John 14:6.)

Matthew 14:27, Amplified Bible:  “But instantly He* (Jesus) spoke to them*, saying*, ‘Take courage!  I AM!  Stop being afraid!’  [Exodus 3:14.]”
*Jesus:  God, the Great I AM:  Authority of the Supreme Sovereign God.

*Them:  His Disciples, the followers, believers in God through faith in Jesus Christ.
*Saying:  Jesus’ command:  TRUST ME:  I have the power, the Authority, the Commitment to care for you, because I care about you.  (See 1 Peter 5:6-7,Amp.)

Are you a disciple of Jesus?  A follower of His way, a believer in His authority to do all that He has promised?
If so, having not seen Him in the flesh, yet you love Him now.  You have already tasted His goodness, His kindness, His mercy toward you in the grace through which He saved you and set you on the pathway of His kingdom.  You have entered into personal relationship with Him through your faith in Him and the truth of His Word.

If you do not have this personal relationship yet, what more from Jesus are you waiting for before you commit your life to Him in utter trust?
He died for you.  He was resurrected from the dead to die no more in order that you might experience the opportunity to choose to live because he lives. 

He enters into a binding covenant with all who will come to Him.  He revealed Himself to the world.  He continues to reveal Himself to people, to countries, to nations – to the waiting, watching world.
He speaks today, as He spoke yesterday, as He will speak tomorrow, because He was sent from God to say all that God declares and reveals – see John 17:1-26.

Those who are listening will hear Him.  Those who are watching will see Him.
Those who are waiting for Him will abide forever with Him in eternal glory.

Where are you?  For what are you waiting?  For whom are you looking?  To whom are you listening?
In the face of the difficult challenges of life, we must come to the place where we have learned to move beyond believing in Him to knowing Him by trusting Him.

To know Him is to love Him.  To love Him is to obey Him.  To obey Him is to TRUST Him.
We practice trusting Him every time we come face-to-face with the difficulties of this life:

“I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33.
Jesus talked constantly with His disciples while He lived briefly and temporarily upon the earth.  He left them with many things unsaid because He knew they could not bear to take them all in at that time, and so He promised them that another would come to remain forever with His people who reside on the earth who would tell them everything they needed to know. 

Jesus said many things, and all with purpose.  Everything He said to them was for a reason:  to help them know and believe in God and also in Him, that they might continue to hold to their faith without falling away when He had been resurrected from the dead and returned to heaven.
Jesus was sent to say, the Holy Spirit was sent to stay! 

   “But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth).  For He will not speak His own message [on His own authority];  but He will tell whatever He hears [from the Father; He will give the message that has been given to Him], and He will announce and declare to you the things that are to come [that will happen in the future].”  John 16:13 Amplified Bible.
For eternal life to begin, there must be an earthly ending; there will be one day (the timing of which is known only to God, the Father), when a door of departure will be opened.  He will usher each believer into His beautiful home in heaven where He has prepared a place for each one to come at the appointed time to the place He has prepared for His people. (See John 14:1.)

My prayer is that all will come to Him before it is too late to be gathered safely and securely into the covenant of His making to provide Eternal Life with Him.
“And this is eternal life:  It means to know – to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand You, the only true and real God, and likewise to know Him, Jesus as the Christ – the Annointed One, the Messiah, - Whom You have sent.”  John 17:3, Amplified Bible.

When it looks like something in your life isn’t turning out well, that’s just Jesus showing you what a greater thing He is doing for you!  He will always see to it that all things work out for your good, your very best, if you love Him.  He loved you first. See Romans 8:28.
Open God’s Word, The Holy Bible, and begin to prayerfully read His open letter to one and all.   The Holy Spirit will be required to open our understanding to hear and to  know…  He will draw us to the Father.

 “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.’”  Matthew 14:27 NKJV.

 

 

Good Friday By Shirley Wiggins   “ The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raise...