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.)
In Revelation 22:12, Jesus says, “And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” It is our Lord’s deep desire to reward us for the things that we should want to do even if no recognition were promised to us. II Corinthians 5:10-11 is an important passage on this subject: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.” There are many applications of this Biblical teaching (which we have studied in detail before). I want to focus on just one simple one: there is a purpose to everything that we do. The cynic Voltaire called life “a bad joke,” a philosophy that leads to aimlessness and futility. Conversely, we understand that our Savior God’s emphasis on reward (and/or lack of reward – see I Corinthians 3:10-15) invests each moment of our lives with meaningfulness. Paul’s rapid response to this doctrine was to “persuade men” about the truth of and the need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Since Paul was primarily an evangelist, his thoughts immediately turned to evangelism. There are many other ways that God calls us to serve Him, of course, and all of them matter now and eternally. However, people need to hear about Jesus as they also see Him in our lives. The sharing of our personal testimony is always an effective way of presenting the Gospel message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All of the things that we do to serve our Lord are important to His purpose; otherwise, they would not be commanded and ultimately rewarded.