It is clear to me that the world has suffered terribly because we Christians did not understand Him. These are Jesus’ words as He approaches Jerusalem in the final few days before His death…
Luk 19:41-44 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Jesus Christ came. He did what the prophets foretold that He would. For a time His disciples had faith and the world benefitted. The chains were being loosed from the world. But we didn’t remain focussed and as a result of us Christians not inheriting all that He has for us, the world fell backwards into the dark ages. That’s what happens if we Christians are not light in a dark world.
But the good news is we have been gradually clawing back our inheritance. Bit by bit we are increasingly eating from the tree of life, drinking from the river of life flowing from His throne… and as a result we are having a greater and greater positive impact on this world.
I wonder how many Christians know that we had to fight to get the right to worship together, to have freedom to meet at churches, having the bible in our own languages, acceptance of the Holy Spirit, baptism, laying on of hands and so many other truths written in the bible. We also had to battle to get rid of inaccuracies in the theology that was handed down through rituals and tradition.
People struggled and died for each and every one of these things to occur. It has cost many lives for the church to become what it is today, improving with each generation discovering more and more truth hidden in plain view. It seems like each generation comes much closer to understanding the depths of wisdom and riches hidden in Jesus Christ and in His actions on His cross.
Col 2:2 … that they may come to have all the abounding wealth and blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively[b]more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely and accurately and thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).
The enemy may try to distract us, get us addicted to the wrong type of spiritual knowledge, get our eyes off Him, stop us from understanding the power of the cross, keep us too busy to understand what Jesus Christ did on the cross which we can receive for the world.
But we must ignore all of that. Let’s never stop focussing on Him and the riches in Him. As Paul said…
1Co 2:2 For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.
Taken from…
Book: If My people (v24!) (670KB) – A free daily devotional which is under development. <100 pages.
Faith + Hope + Love 