GOD’S WORD FOR JANUARY 25 ~ ~ Matthew 3:2 ~ ~ “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jeremiah 17:9 ~ ~ “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
Every person who has ever lived, or ever shall live, is far from the perfection needed to save ourselves. Only receiving Christ as Lord and Savior will give us a new heart.
From “How to Read the Bible” by Michael Youssef.
( You may not have as much time as you think to make the right decision for eternity………..the world is going crazy, there is no truth except God’s Word, and we’re seeing the Book of the Revelation come true before our eyes around the world. You don’t want to be left here when it all goes down……..see the verses at the end of this writing, after you read it.)
THE “INTOLERABLE” CLAIMS OF JESUS
Jesus expressed a profound truth when He said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). His concept of the Kingdom was not at all the popular notion.
Most Jews of that time were nurtured on the apocalyptic hope described in the book of Daniel, the hope of God’s sudden intervention appearing from the sky:
Daniel 7:13-14
“I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven. One like a son of man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him.
And to Him was given dominion, honor, and a kingdom, so that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all languages might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.”
The Jews were not wrong to expect their Messiah to arrive among the clouds at some unknown future time. But that description in Daniel 7 applies to the Second Coming of the Messiah. At His first coming, Jesus arrived without heavenly fanfare. He Himself explained that His Second coming would be very different from His first when He told the high priest, “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:62)
This was Jesus’s explicit claim to be the prophesied Messiah. And the dramatic miracle of the resurrection, attested to by many witnesses, confirmed it (Romans 1:3-4). He is the preexisting Son who emptied Himself and “made Himself nothing” to take human form and identify with us (Philippians 2:6-8). He is the very image of the substance of God, far above the angels, and He now sits at the right hand of the Divine Majesty) see Hebrews 1). He is the Word, the cosmic “Logos” who has existed since before the beginning of time and space (John 1:1-3).
These were intolerable claims to the first-century Jews — just as they are intolerable to Muslims today — The ancient world had seen many self-proclaimed “god-men,” “divine kings,” and “living messiahs” who clamored for attention among the pagans. The first-century Jews rightly abhorred such claims.
In fact, a century and a half before the birth of Christ, tens of thousands of Jews fought and died rather than bow down to Antiochus Epiphanes, a Hellenistic king of the Seleucid Empire who ruled over Jewish territory. Like many Hellenistic rulers, he claimed divine status – the incarnation of the Greek god Zeus – and demanded to be worshiped.
We will continue with this section tomorrow.
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These are the promises for those who repent (are truly sorry) for their sins, and truly want and believe in forgiveness only because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah. This is why He came, died, and rose again. We can never be good enough to get to heaven. We will only be saved by making Jesus our personal Savior:
Isaiah 43:25
I, even I, am He who blots out your sins for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
Ps 103:2
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our sins from us.
Jeremiah 31:34
No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
Acts 2:38
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Psalm 32:1
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Daniel 9:9
To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, because we have rebelled against Him;