“I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”
John 14: 6
12 “Look, I AM coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22: 12-13
Pastors Noreen & Henry Kevern
I Want To Know Christ
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:7-11
Everyday is a new day, a day to grow closer in knowing God through our faith in Jesus. Everyday gives us a chance to open our hearts, our souls and our minds to the Lord, that we might know Him more and more. Everything that is in our lives, it means nothing if we do not have the righteousness of God that comes to us and is lived through us in our faith. Nothing profits us if we do not know God and if we do not share in the life and death of Christ; we must purge ourselves of self and fill ourselves with Christ, sharing in His sufferings, becoming dead to sin, and through faith in Him, attain our Salvation. For it is through grace that we have been saved, though faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10). Nothing that we do can attain us God’s Salvation because our Salvation was bought with the price of Jesus’ body and blood. Our Salvation has already happened. What we have to do is believe it and accept it. Believe in the One that the Father has sent and thus being created by God to do good things, we do good towards others and fill our lives with the knowledge and wisdom of God. We were created to worship God; it is hardwired into our beings, but alas far too many people have fallen prey to the devil, having allowed him into their lives and allowing him control. They have hardened their hearts because the devil has told them that if we believe in Christ we will lose our freedom to do whatever we want.
Far to often people want the easy way out, they want to seek pleasures that are not good for them or to overindulge in things and fall into the trap that Satan sets. God allows us to make the choice for ourselves, to live in Him and through Him or to allow the devil to live in us and through us. The difference is life and death. We have to make the choice in our lives to accept Jesus Who is the way, the truth and the life. There are only 2 choices for us, the way of life that is of God and the way of death that is of Satan. Simple choices really: God wants us to attain His righteousness that will overcome all the impulses that are given to us by the devil. He will shower us with His blessings if we chose Him. Some think that God should shower them with blessings no matter what, but they do not understand the kind of relationship that God wants of us. He wants to be with us always, His Spirit wants to live in us, be on fire in us, so that we can attain His perfection. We cannot do this on our own, we have to give our lives to God and let Him bring us to His perfection. In the story of the Rich Ruler who came to Christ to ask Him what must he do to inherit eternal life Jesus answers: “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” Peter said to Him, “We have left all we had to follow You!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brother or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life (Luke 18:19-30).
How much have you done to show your love for God? Have you given your life and allowed God to fill you with His Spirit and live your life in the way of the Lord? Or are you like this rich man, struggling to go through the narrow gate towards the righteousness of God? It is not possible for us to attain our Salvation on our own; we need to know that God has already purchased our Salvation through His death on a cross. The ‘eye of the needle’ refers to the small gate in the large gate at the entrance of a city. At night the large gate is shut for the night, but a smaller gate is there so that a person can go find shelter and safety for the night but they cannot bring in their loaded camels. So they have to choose between leaving all their riches outside and receive the protection that is offered with being inside the gate or to stay outside with their riches and not have the protection afforded from being inside. That is how many people look at follow Christ. They are afraid to give everything up for God for they do not want to lose the riches that they already have. But Jesus tells us that if we give up everything for God, we will receive much more in this lifetime and in our eternal home.
But what are you holding on to? What is more important in your life than God? Is having a nice car more important than your Salvation? Is having a nice house more important than your Salvation? Are having many toys to play with more important than knowing God in your life? Here is where most people fail to understand about having a relationship with God. We have to know what is the most important thing in our lives, God or things? We have to decide if we want to put God first or putting lots of things before God and not having the way of the Lord. Decisions, decisions, decisions! Do we follow the way of the Lord or do we follow the way of the world that is where the devil roams around trying to steal you away from the Lord? It should be so easy to just follow God but it is not. There are too many temptations from the devil in our lives. Too many things that have slowed faded into our lives that are of the devil. Too many lives that are lived in sin because people don’t think they can be good and it’s easier to live in sin. That is why Jesus talked about the narrow gate. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter though it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
What are you scared of? Are you afraid of God seeing your sin? God already knows your sins and when Jesus died on the cross before you were born, He knew what you would do, and by giving up His life for yours, for mine, He gave us a choice. It is up to you to choose God or to lead a life full of things that are bringing about your destruction. We cannot work for our Salvation; it is already done in the Son. The light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers (Isaiah 10:17). In a single day, Jesus was brought forth and found guilty of our sins and in that same day He was nailed to the cross and died for our sins. And Christ, Who was without sin, died so that we might attain eternal life. “I, even I, AM the Lord, and apart from Me there is no savior (Isaiah 43:11). Apart from God, there is nothing that can save us. Nothing that we can do will save us from our sins. It is only when we turn to God and ask Him to forgive us of our sins, it is only when we believe that Jesus is our Savior, it is only when we follow the way of the Lord, for He is the way, the truth and the life for our lives. Only God saves, He saves us from ourselves and from the devil, IF we let Him. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). Let’s read that again. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). Do you not see? Do you not know? By His wounds, His stripes, those whips upon His back, those nails that pierced His hands and feet, the sword that pierced Him, Jesus took upon Himself “OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, OUR SINS. Yet it was not the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He WILL SEE His Offspring (Isaiah 53:10). It was not the Lord’s will to die on the cross, it was the CHOICE He made for you and me. He chose to give His life as a guilt offering. He chose to be the scapegoat. And we who know Him and choose to love Him and follow Him are His offspring.
This is the Lord’s covenant with us. That through His death and resurrection, we might choose to follow His covenant, His way for us. It’s all there for us to read, should we choose to. What are you waiting for? He will not take away our Salvation, because it is done in the cross of Jesus. When we willingly refuse to accept our Salvation, when we willingly refuse the cross, when we willingly refuse God, we take away our own way to eternal life; God will not make you come to the cross, you have to do it. Is it worth it? You bet it is! “Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is His Name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth”
(Isaiah 54:4-5).
There is no shame in knowing God. The devil may lie to you and tell you that there is no God, but that is a lie. God is your husband and with Him you are one. Remember in Genesis: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (Genesis 2:23-24). Man and woman become one flesh, no longer two individuals. Jesus reminded us about this marriage of man and woman in Matthew 19:4-6: “Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” When we marry, we become one flesh, and when we decide to make God our spouse for eternal life, we are one with Him. Our relationship with God is one like a marriage, a husband and wife, two becoming one. We have to grow with each other in order to know one another. When we separate ourselves from God because of sin, it is akin to divorce. And God does not like divorce. God does not want us to separate from Him and neither does He want us to separate in our marriages here on earth. God is a God of order and God created marriage in the beginning. God wants us to be faithful to Him and faithful to the one we marry here on earth. God wants us to live a life that is of oneness, a joining of two to become one. God wants us to live our lives with the same unconditional love that He has for us, He wants us to have the same unconditional love for all people. I love Henry; he was given to me by God to be my soul mate, my other half. I am not whole without him and he is not whole without me. It is the same with our relationship with God, but more so. Because we give our lives to God, we put Him first and we honor and worship God by being one with Him in our relationship with God. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I AM in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they many be one as We are One. I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23).
Can we completely understand what it is to be one with another? I think so. As I said earlier, we are hardwired for God. He is our Creator and He put it in our makeup that we should seek Him. It is in our nature to desire a relationship with God. It is in choosing God first in our lives and putting everything into His keeping, that brings us the oneness with God. Imagine living worry free! That is what it is like being one with God! Free from worrying about all the things in life and trusting in God to take care of us. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?…But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:25-34).
You are worth more to God than the birds and the lilies of the field. God does not want a one-way relationship. If you think that God should do for you and you not do for Him, then that is selfishness. God allows the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the righteous and the unrighteous. God requires a ‘Covenant Relationship’ with us: an agreement between Him and us to be one. He has sent before you life and death.
Chose this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 23:15)
