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.)
As we consider the persistence of Jesus within His seeming silence of Revelation 8:2-6, we return to yesterday’s passage from Luke 18:1-8. In that parable, Jesus commended the persistence of a righteous widow who finally received a righteous decision from an unjust judge. We must be careful in our interpretation of all Scripture, especially parables, which are stories designed to illustrate a key theological point. Some have misconstrued the teaching of Jesus here and have reached the false conclusion that our prayers can change the mind of God – what is called open theology, process theology, or the openness of God. Such speculation is heresy. First, if God changes, He is not God. James 1:17 is absolute: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Hebrews 13:8 says specifically of God the Son, “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Our God is immutable; that is, He cannot alter Who He is or what He does. Second, logically, if we could change God, we certainly could not change Him for the better! Why, then, are we to persist in prayer? Prayer is, of course, interaction and communication with God. When we pray, we are entering into His immediate presence, directly to “the throne” (Revelation 8:3). We are also entering into God’s plan, including the unfolding of the events in the book of Revelation. When we persist in prayer, we are joining with our persistent Savior Who always hears and answers “the prayers of all saints” (Revelation 8:3).