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 have previously studied the beatitude of Revelation 22:14: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city.” This blessing stands in starkly stunning contrast to verse 15: “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” These two distinct verses do have two things in common though – people who make choices and a certain outcome based upon that choice and on the unchanging character of God. Verse 14 tells us that it is not our goodness that gets us into heaven; rather, we are granted that “right” if we place our trust in Jesus for His everlasting salvation. Similarly, it is not even the extreme badness of people in verse 15 that keeps them from heaven, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). On our own, the best of us could not take even one feeble, faltering step toward our Holy God: “There is none righteous; no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Romans 3:10-11). Verse 15, then, is revealing the inevitable outcome of rejecting Jesus as Savior. The eternal outcomes are certain: the believer will be “blessed” eternally, but the unbeliever will be “without” – that is, will never enter into the presence of the Savior Who has been refused. May each one of us be certain today of a saving faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that guarantees that we will be “blessed” forever.