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.)
We spent last week in II Peter 3:8-9, and I would like to return to it today. On Saturday, we looked on the other side of the word “but” and saw a bit of what life can be without faith in Jesus, God the Son. It is a sad world of scorn (verse 3) and deliberate ignorance (verse 5). However, anyone can be delivered from that bigoted and bitter place. I often mention (and did a few weeks ago) the former atheist Anthony Flew, who spent a good part of his academic life debating Christians. He actually listened to their arguments and eventually believed in the existence of God (theism); I do not know if he took the next logical step and believed in Jesus, God the Son, as his Savior. For him, scientific arguments such as intelligent design and irreducible complexity convinced him that God must exist. In fact, he wrote, “The most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries.” Of course, I believe that fulfilled prophecy is even more compelling, but Flew, with scientific training, was especially drawn to scientific arguments. We can contrast his belief in God with the disbelief of the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who says that he is 95% certain that God does not exist. Logically, this does not mean that he is 5% uncertain. No, to be 95% certain is to be 100% uncertain. Still, Jesus reaches out to “all”(verse 9). We have every reason to believe in God and to trust that all of His promises will be fulfilled. Yes, our Lord is “longsuffering” (verse 9), and “the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation” (verse 15). We must be grateful that through faith in Jesus Christ we are moved from scoffing to sonship, from deliberate ignorance to deliverance. May we rejoice that we can be certain of eternal life with Jesus.