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 we began studying Revelation 14, I pointed out that Jesus is beautiful, that He is attractive and draws us to Himself. Specifically, He is beautiful in granting personal salvation. The first five verses of this chapter speak of the sealed 144,000 Jewish Christians. Even at the end, when despotism, destruction, and death are rampant, when almost everything is ugly, people, one by one, will respond to the kind call of Christ. Each of these 144,000 must make an individual decision to reject the Antichrist – a powerful, daunting man – and to follow Christ. Then, these men will present the beauty of Jesus to others, some of whom will respond in faith. Verse 4c says of the 144,000, “These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.” The faithful ministry of the few will lead others to see the beauty of Jesus, for “firstfruits” assures a greater harvest to come. We should marvel that even at this time of expansive evil our beautiful Savior will continue to attract folks to Himself and His everlasting salvation.