Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
When I think of the voice of Jesus, I am particularly drawn to the logic of His words. I am no more logical than anyone else, but the language of His logic is overwhelmingly compelling to me. The power of fulfilled prophecy is especially convincing and cannot be denied. For example, the prediction of the birth of the Messiah was written down at least 1400 years before Jesus was born (Genesis 3:15). He was to be preceded by a forerunner, John the Baptist (Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1, 4:5). The place of His nativity was specifically delineated as Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). As a small child, He would be taken to Egypt to protect Him from the evil King Herod (Hosea 11:1). Even the massacre of the innocents by Herod was foretold (Jeremiah 31:15). Hundreds of such prophecies were fulfilled in the birth, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. The sheer volume and specificity of these veracious foretellings confront our arrogant disbelief and compel a reasonable response of faith.