"The New Covenant in Heart and Mind"

 Scripture:   Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 12:20-26

This issue of “new covenant” is not as complicated as some folks may think.  A covenant, in simple terms, establishes the conditions of a relationship, whether between two people, or two nations.  It was always given by the superior party, and would be accepted, without negotiation or change, by the lesser party.  With God, He offered Abraham, as an example, a promise of land (the Promised Land) as a home for his descendants for all time and that his family would consist of “many nations” (Genesis 17:1-8), and in return, the people were to obey, follow, and honor God, also for all time.

This may sound pretty straight forward to us, but the problem is that no one, with a few possible exceptions, has ever been able to stay true to our part of the agreement!  This has, I’m sure, caused the Lord a great deal of angst, for His greatest reason in creating the covenant in the first place, was, I believe, to bless those who followed His word for their lives!

 The problem that we have created for ourselves is that one small word of failure – “sin”.  So in the newness of covenant that God made for us, He offered a word of hope, the word that we know as “forgiveness”.  Of course, He never withdrew His expectation for obedience, but now, when we fail in living up to His way, we have the opportunity to seek the Lord’s forgiveness and begin again.  But the one part of the covenant that has never, and will never be released, is faith.

 God created the path to “forgiveness”, and became that path for each of us, by faith in His Son Jesus Christ.  Without a justifying faith in Jesus, there is no forgiveness, and without forgiveness, there is no fulfillment of the promise for an eternal Home.  And as part of that codicil, the Lord also opened His promise to anyone who would come to Him by faith.

 We still haven’t done a very good job of keeping our side of God’s way, but just how far will God go in helping us throughout this life?

 Read Jeremiah 31:31-34

 The Lord will never abandon His covenant – it is far too important to Him that we have the opportunity to see eternity through Him.  Last week we considered the healing that God brought to the people of Israel who had been bitten by those poisonous snakes in Numbers 21: 4-9.  And in John 3:14-15, Jesus compares Himself to the healing that came through that bronze replica that Moses was told to put on a pole.  How much more could God possibly do for us without sacrificing the divine love that He has for each and every one of us sinners?  As we read though the Hebrew texts, it would almost seem that God had withdrawn His covenant from the people over and over again, but the truth is that to show the people just what their life would be like without Him, He simply held back on the grace that they had always enjoyed, and they suffered for their lack of faithful living.

 Divine love for humanity required that God would install His commandments, not only in our minds, but in our hearts.  The point being that we would not only know His law, but would accept, and claim, and love His ways.  But even at that, He allowed “free will” to function in how faithful we would be in choosing between the way of Earth, and the way of eternal Hope.  This entire approach to living a relationship with our Almighty God was unique for both Israel and Judah, in that it would no longer be based solely in whether they kept the commands of their Jehovah God, or whether they failed miserably in the way they lived their life.

 Forgiveness of sin would be the key to this new way.  And why should this work out for the better?  Because first, people would be able to actually know God, and not simply stand in constant fear of what He might do to them at any given moment of time.  And having a familiarity with the Lord and His ways is the very thing that should inspire us to live faithfully.  And secondly, the fact that God doesn’t keep a running record of our sin means that the sheer volume of our abject failure to stay true to His word isn’t going to condemn us.  It will only be the intentional and unrepentant acts of disobedience that will pull us down into judgment.

 But what is the best part of this “new covenant”?  It will be in the fact that this new relationship will be personal, and intimate, and uniting, not only in the Lord, but with each other through Him.  It comes in the final sentence of verse 33 – “I will be their God, and they will be my people.”  And it is this promise that makes everything complete and right.

 Read John 12:20-26

 With the coming of Greeks to seek out Jesus, we begin to see just how far this “new covenant” will go.  These were, in all likelihood, believers, even though they had never converted to Judaism.  And as we read of non-Jews beginning to come to Jesus in faith, we see that the availability of salvation for all who believe is finally becoming a reality.  And as the new covenant begins to take hold in the lives of all humanity, this becomes the mark of glory for Jesus’ life.

 When Jesus offers the parable of planting a seed, it is about His life that will soon be taken, and the seeds that will come from His death are about us.  The Lord is teaching us that His death will be the source of salvation for all who believe, and that His resurrection to new and eternal life will be the promise of that same life for all who believe and trust in Him.

 And when He begins to talk about our own lives, whether we love them or hate them, and whether we will lose them or gain them, He is referring to our faith and what faith will do for our eternity.  If we prefer the humanity of this life, with all that it involves – the joys, pain, struggle, self-determination, betrayal, sin, death, - then the pleasures of this earth are all of the glory that any of us will ever know.  But if we hate those things that burden us, and divide us and break our spirits, and instead look to the Lord for guidance and hope in this life, we will quickly understand that this life is nothing when compared to the one that awaits us in Christ Jesus!

 But not only is faith the key to God’s reward, it also opens our eyes to the truth behind both forms of life.  Faith and trust in the word of God makes all the difference between our living in darkness - finding our own way, with tripping and stumbling and falling causing more wounds and scars than we have time to count, or on the other hand, living in the Light of Christ – discovering God’s truth and love and compassion, and hope, as well as the divine promise that can only be ours through our walk with Jesus.

 And that last verse tells it all.  If we are to serve in the name of Jesus, it must also be in the way of Jesus, and never in the way of Earth!  I know that I’ve testified before to that truth, that when I finally came to the conclusion that unless I’m where Jesus is and wants me to be also, that no matter what I do, and how wonderfully faithful it may appear to be, it will add nothing – absolutely nothing - to my salvation in the long run.

 This new covenant that God has put in place should humble and inspire us all.  He has put Himself on the line to make eternity a possibility for all of humanity.  Israel had been charged with reaching out to the world in faith, but they never seemed to get a good grasp on who their Lord God Jehovah actually was for themselves!  But now, through the words that the prophet Jeremiah has shared with us today, we can know our God in a personal way through faith in the one and only Son, that He sent to show us the way to heavenly glory!

 The new covenant of God not only brought the Son of God into our lives, but it also sent the Spirit of God to continue to guide us, and challenge us, to inspire us, to teach us, and remind us of the difference between having the salvation that Jesus brought, versus the life that we used to develop on our own.  And what a difference there is between the two!

 And God has done it all, with us on His mind and in His heart.  Give thanks for Him and His way, that we can be His through all that He has done on our behalf.

“Death by the World”

Scripture:  Numbers 21:4-9,  Ephesians 2:1-10,  John 3:14-21

Today is the 4^th Sunday in Lent, a day in which we will consider why Jesus came into this world, and what we would be subjected to without Him.  The point of Jesus’ coming, quite honesty, was to make a direct and specific distinction between the false hope that comes from the culture around us, and the eternal promise of life that all will find in the Christ.  I can only imagine that the reason so many in this world find no solace in the way of Jesus, is because of their denial of God’s character and eternal nature. 

 I realize, all too well, that God’s way is so radically different from the ways of Earth that it may be difficult for many to comprehend His many gifts in any meaningful way.  But from a personal perspective, when we accept the invitation that the Lord Jesus extends to all who will come to Him in faith, the aspects between the world and God become much more apparent, with the Lord’s way truly being preferential.   

 The biggest problem that many experience, is that the culture is unable to differentiate between the outcomes that followers of each way will receive.  Jesus promises eternal life with Him, while the world sees no future beyond an abrupt and dark ending, and when we deny that Jesus has any power to offer something different from the world, our ability to choose evaporates!

 Our choice is between life and death, and whether we see them both as real possibilities or not, is a moot point – they are what they are, and we will never be able to change that!

 Read Numbers 21:4-9

 This event is but one in the history of Israel’s complaining about the way that the Lord God Jehovah has been caring for them.  And when their life took a turn for the worse in this time, no one but Moses was willing to come before the Lord to seek forgiveness and intervention for the people.  Why didn’t the people feel that they could offer a prayer for help to their God?  It appears from scripture that they knew very well that they were in the wrong, and they felt that to approach their Lord as unclean sinners would bring them certain destruction!

 What they couldn’t seem to grasp, though, was that the real issue at hand was their lack of faith, and not the specific complaining!  They were in trouble, regardless.  But why poisonous snakes?  Couldn’t God bring the people to see Him in the Light of reality without causing them so much pain?  Apparently not!  Humanity’s history always proves that we never seem to move off dead center until something major happens in our life.  And in Israel’s case, God has always known what it would take to get their attention, even though He has always known that their change of heart would never last very long.

 But was the Lord’s true purpose for these serpents only about punishment and death?  Or was it to open Israel’s eyes to the sin that had crept into their lives, and that confession, forgiveness and healing would be the only way for them to come back to their Jehovah God? 

 Or was there even more than this in God’s plan for the nation?

 Read Ephesians 2:1-10

 In the opening 2 verses of this passage, Paul makes the point that sin and failure to obey the Lord’s call, are the purpose and weakness behind death.  Why did those poisonous snakes have to come against Israel?  Because the people had refused to see that their God was always at work for the good of their entire nation.  He had enabled their freedom from Egyptian slavery.  He had come against all of the obstacles that had threatened their successful journey to that new and promised land.  And He not only had been their guide with His Cloud and Fire (Exodus 13:20-22), but had provided nourishment and protection throughout their time away. 

 Even when they doubted and complained, God never turned a blind eye or deaf ear to their needs.  They might not have appreciated the manna and quail that were given to them every day (Exodus16:9-16), but those gifts never ceased to sustain them - every single day.  Do we ever, in our daily prayers and petitions to the Lord, try to convince Him, through our words, of the exact and best way that He should work to care for our lives?  It all comes down to trusting that our Almighty God will care for all of our needs, but always as He sees best, and seldom in the way that we desire! 

 Death is the result of disobedience and sin, while life comes to us only through God’s mercy and grace.  And verse 5 affirms that when faith in Jesus is combined with the mercy that God has always wanted to show to us, life will overwhelm and defeat the world’s condemnation and death.   Once again, Ephesians2:8-10, “⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 

 Paul tells us that this salvation has nothing to do with all that we think we have done to please God, but rather through trusting in all that Christ Jesus has done for us, and revealed to us, through faith.  And when Paul speaks of our “good works”, he is actually saying that those are the times that through our faithful walk, God has been able to accomplish great things through our faith.

 We are saved from death whenever we fix our eyes on the Christ who has made all things possible for the likes of you and me.

 Read John 3:14-21

 When Moses was obedient, creating that bronze serpent out in the wilderness, and placing it up high on that pole so that all who were dying could look upon it and live, it had nothing to do with what either Moses or the people did, except that they obediently followed as they had been told – it was all about God and the grace that He extends to all who believe.  And we have to ask – is our faith in Jesus any different in what it will do for each of us?

 Without the Lord Jesus in our lives, His grace and mercy will always be blocked by our indifference and failure to love God as He has loved even the worst of us.  Without Christ, our condemnation in sin, and the death that it imposes, will most assuredly be ours. But as John writes, that will never be God’s desire for us, for He gave us Jesus as Savior; He gave us Godly sacrifice at Calvary, that we might be freed from our sin and its consequences.

  The cost of our failures is on us by our own conviction; but in return, God gives us freedom and eternal life if we simply look up to the power and love that Jesus has demonstrated for us; He gives us divine Light to overcome the darkness that our own human weakness has created; He has taught us His truth; He has shown His grace; and all that He asks in return is that we share these gifts with those who have yet to know them.

 “¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” 

 Isn’t a divine gift of life, far better than the world’s condemnation and death?  To borrow the words that Joshua (24:15) shared with the nation of Israel, " --- if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

 Each of us must also choose wisely - today.

 

"Rebuilding Lives"

 Scripture:  1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ,  John 2:13-22

 In our first two Sundays of Lent, we considered the power of God that works in each and every life who is surrendered to the name of Jesus.  By faith in Christ, we receive His salvation, and through His grace, we become “friends” of God (John 15: 13-15).  Today, the 3^rd Sunday of Lent, we take a look at another gift that comes to us through the love of God in Christ Jesus – and that is forgiveness and the rebuilding of the life we had so neglected in the years before we came to Jesus in faith (Romans 15: 18-21).

 We have to remember, though, that God’s “rebuilding” is never to our specifications or desires, but always through the way and truth that He has been presenting to us throughout this life.  In the verses preceding our opening passage today, Paul offers the Church in Corinth a glimpse of the drastic change that had come to his life when Jesus met him on that historic road to Damascus.  He had turned from being completely rooted in the Law of Moses, to being firmly founded in the way and love of Christ.  Before, he would never have seen the Gentiles as a people who deserved God’s love and presence just as much as the Jews did.  And now, ministry to these scorned people had become his greatest joy!

 The apostle Paul is, very possibly, the greatest example of a life that was “rebuilt” through faith in Jesus Christ.  Once, he had hated everything about the way of God in Christ.  He was arrogant and self-aggrandizing to the point that, in his own mind, no one knew any better than he did – to the point that those who did not live up to his way of thinking, deserved nothing less than punishment, up to, and including, death.  And the change that came into his life brought him to the very faith that he had been persecuting, and he suddenly realized that the way of Jesus was, in truth, the very way that he had been striving for all of his life!

 But what about the rebuilding of our lives?

 Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 The question that immediately jumps into our minds at the beginning of this passage is no less than the incredible difference between God’s wisdom and the human version.  This just may be the primary reason that our lives need rebuilding, too!  The truth is that the way of God doesn’t make a lot of sense when compared to what we have always known through our personal wisdom, and I believe that it hangs on those three strange words that describe God – omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

 Omnipotence means that God is infinitely powerful, that there is absolutely nothing that can stand against Him.  The power of God is indescribable, immeasurable, and beyond anything that humanity, in our own frail form of wisdom, will ever be able to fully understand.

 Omniscience means that God’s wisdom and understanding is infinite, while ours is so limited that if we understand a mere fraction of all that there is, we would be blessed!  There is nothing that God doesn’t know or understand, and just in case someone believes that they have been able to hide parts of their sinful life from Him, you had better guess again!  Because He already knows!

 Omnipresence means that God is existing and involved at all times and in all places, simultaneously and without exception,.  To fully appreciate what this involves requires that we appreciate the fact that God is timeless, and that God can, and does, defy the physics of creation all the time!  After all, He is perfect and infinite and eternal, and nothing could never defeat His eternal perfection, or block His presence among us.

 The Lord has no limitation or restriction, and we need to appreciate that fact.  We, in our rebuilding, discover how to accept our created imperfection, and how faith in Jesus Christ overcomes that fault.  We also grow in the knowledge of how to patiently wait with God when He chooses to wait.  This is one reason why Paul writes that “the message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing”.  All who have yet to come to Christ for new life, haven’t learned three important lessons – (1) that they are imperfect while God isn’t, (2) that they have to learn how to wait patiently and expectantly for the Lord to complete His work, and 3) that our acceptance of Jesus will never be achieved until we immerge from our worldly brand of “foolishness! 

 The world has no way to feel the power of grace, so the mystery of the cross, the necessary death of the Son of God and Son of Man, and that death for Him was overpowered by grace through the resurrection of both the Divine and the Man.  It can hardly be explained in any reasonable way, so for “the ones who are perishing”, it must be nothing less than “foolishness”.  But God’s “foolish” mercy, if that, indeed, is all that it is, is the only hope that anyone will ever have for eternity.

 When we begin to surrender ourselves to the way of God in Christ Jesus, our appreciation for who Jesus actually is also begins to grow, and our understanding of who God in Jesus truly is, also starts to change into a whole new perspective – that maybe His way isn’t so foolish.    This is what God's sanctifying grace can do for us.

 Read John 2:13-17

 Perhaps this, too, is foolishness to the world’s way of thinking.  After all, weren’t these merchants simply helping the faithful obtain sacrificial animals to offer up to Jehovah God, and to help those who only had foreign currency to be able to use Hebrew coinage to give in offering to the temple?  The problem that Jesus had with these transactions wasn’t that the sales were being made, but that they were abusive and riddled with theft and lies.  Jesus wasn’t about to simply address the evil itself, He went after the entire corrupt process that was being carried out within the temple courts, the House of Worship for Israel as well as for any God fearing gentiles who had yet to convert to Judaism.  And so, the Lord did His own “house cleaning” to free Israel’s worship from the world’s foolish idolatry. 

 In Psalm 69:7-12, a Psalm attributed to King David, he laments the fact that the very ones who should be faithful were denying and debasing his Jehovah God’s name and house.  In that passage, we read “⁷ For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.  ⁸ I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children; ⁹ for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.”  David is confessing that he no longer feels like he belongs to the family of Jacob – he feels like a religious outcast.  His faith and passion, the “zeal” that he feels for his God, consumes his life, and he sees little evidence that anyone else feels that same way.

 As members of the “family of United Methodism”, do we feel as King David did?  That the “insults of those who insult (Christ) also fall upon us”?  In Luke 17:24-26, Jesus cries out that He, too, “must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation”.  And in our previous discussions of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:10-12), we remember that Jesus told us that we, too, would suffer from the hatred of the world, simply because we love and honor Him?

 Just who are the “foolish” ones?  Who are the ones who need to be “rebuilt” in faith?

 Read John 2:18-22

 So where is your authority to do this to the merchants?  Just who do you think you are to carry out this despicable act?  Apparently, none of them actually knew who the Lord Jesus was!  And when Jesus responded with the thought that if the temple was torn down, He would rebuild it in three days – that infuriated them even more!  They were still taking the words of Jesus literally, instead of seeing that they contained prophetic thought regarding Himself!

 Jesus was offering these intellectuals of Israel the opportunity to be “rebuilt” with and through Him.  Their entire approach to religion had been through their own understanding and interpretation, and they had forgotten what the prophets had told them many years before, especially in Isaiah 9:6-7. Actually the first 7 verses of that chapter proclaimed the coming of Jesus Messiah, and while I have no doubt that those learned men knew that passage well, they had their own ideas of what it meant for the nation, and those words just didn’t fit with what they were seeing in Jesus.

 These men, and the nation’s priesthood, and the royal leadership of Israel, and the entire nation itself, needed the “rebuilding” that Jesus came to win for them, and very, very few ever saw the hope of God in that Man.  While Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:4-42), she could see that He was wise and Godly, but didn’t quite see Him as God.  So the Lord told her that the time was coming when true worship would be in an entirely new place and way, separate from where they worshipped and different from where the Jews believed God was, implying that He would soon be the “Temple” where the faithful would come to show their reverence and love to the Father.  And when their conversation was ended, the woman would go and begin testifying to every person in the community, that this Man was unlike any she had ever known.  And many would come to seek Him.

 Jesus is ready, willing, able and anxious to rebuild anyone who comes to Him – gentile or Jew – anyone throughout the world - but we have to ask Him to help us.  Matthew 11:28 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  God doesn’t force His way upon anyone, but neither does He turn anyone away who comes to Him repentant and seeking the new way in Him.

 A new and rebuilt life can be anyone’s through faith in Jesus Christ.  A new mind and heart can be ours when we open ourselves to the exceptional and extravagant love of God in Jesus.  A complete and renewed relationship with Almighty God can be ours, when we ask Jesus to cleanse us of the ways of earth and to fill us with Him.  Jesus’ sole purpose in coming to earth in human form, to teach and do all that He did, was to give us the chance to become new and right once again.

 Will you give Him the opportunity today?

"Faith Through the Son of God"

 Scripture:  Romans 4:13-17,  Mark 8:34-38

 Since the coming of Jesus Christ, faith has been the most important aspect in our relationship with Almighty God.  The problem for most people, though, is that faith must be defined and evaluated only by the Lord, and not by our own wishes and desires!  In Matthew 28:17-20, the passage that we know as the Great Commission, believers are given an order to do three things – 1) to go into the world to “make disciples of all nations” – for there is no longer any limitation on who is allowed to come to the way of the Lord, 2) to ensure that all disciples are baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – that a commitment and dedication must be made by each and every person to follow fully in the way of Jesus, and 3) to teach and encourage each other in obedience of all that the Lord has told us – that the words of Jesus, and those that are reinforced by the Holy Spirit, are the only truths that we should ever hold tightly to for the rest of our life (John 14:25-27). 

 At Mount Sinai, God gave Moses Ten Commandments, without a lot of explanation, and the people were called to follow them.  But we tend to like the details of any directive, to be sure that we know what the command actually means for our lives.  So Israel’s “learned leadership” took it upon themselves to add some details of their own, to ensure that their understanding of God’s will would be followed to the “letter of the law”!  Unfortunately, human wisdom and understanding isn’t all that dependable (Isaiah 55:8-9), and Israel would be led astray by those human “additions” to God’s word.

 The way of faith in Christ can be so easily perverted when we take on the authority to explain or clarify what Jesus meant when He taught us about the way of faith in Him.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone should be left to their own desires and understanding of the Lord’s teaching.  It should be the Church’s responsibility to ensure that everything that is taught is in line with God’s will and word for our lives.  But how often does the Church actually fail to live up to her responsibility?

 So today, on this second Sunday of Advent 2023, we will see what two of the Church’s earliest evangelists had to say about the Lord’s teaching, and how it fits with the divine will of God.

 Read Romans 4:13-17

 Paul begins this passage with the thought that the law of Torah has little to do with our faith in God and our acceptance of His way.  And he emphasizes this with the idea that righteousness comes through a faith that parallels the depth of faith that Abram exhibited, and not by simple adherence to a set of laws that have been modified and clarified into insignificance through human intervention.

 Why is this understanding so important?  The apostle readily proclaims that the law can never bring with it a promise of any value – it only promises punishment for failure to adhere to its ways.  These thoughts indicate a major change in Paul’s understanding of what God desires for our lives.  In the life he lived prior to meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19), the law was all that he would ever depend on, and faith in Christ was little more than heresy!  But now, the conflict between law and faith had taken on a whole new posture in his life.

 As Paul continues in his letter, he reminds us that the Lord’s promise of eternal life comes to us by faith, and has little to do with what we do beyond faith.  Of course, a life in faith does involve trusting in those things that Jesus has taught – faith, grace, and promise are all closely tied together.  Faith is our trust, believe and love of all that Christ has done on our behalf; grace is from God, and defines the depth to which we are loved by and through the divine nature of Jesus Christ; and promise is what we receive when grace and faith become one in Christian unity.

 In the 17^th chapter of Genesis (17:1-5), we read that the Lord God Jehovah promised Abram “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. ² Then I will make My covenant between Me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.   ³ Abram fell facedown, and God said to Him, ⁴ “As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.”

 Did you notice?  God made His promise to Abram when the man agreed – not with words, but within his heart - that he would do his very best to walk faithfully with his Lord God.  Our Lord Jesus does that for us, too!  When we, in heart and Spirit, commit our humble life in faithful obedience to the Divine, He will promise His glory and life to us in that very moment.  Our Faith, God’s Grace, then Promise through the unity we have with each other. 

 Read Mark 8:34-38

 Mark tells the crowd, as well as the multitude of followers who have come to Christ throughout the ages and beyond, that it all hinges upon our discipleship with Him.  And who is a disciple?  It is one who follows the Teacher, and learns His ways faithfully, living what they have learned, and then shares what they have learned – not so much with the Teacher, but with those who have yet to hear the Master’s call on their own lives.  But one caution - in no way does discipleship promise that following Jesus will be easy and successful - for Mark, as well as both Matthew and Luke, readily proclaim that discipleship will also bring with it the world’s animosity, and fear, and denial, and accusations, and lies, and very possibly, their own cross.  And with each and every attack from the world, Satan will be right there, offering his own brand of promise - that if we leave Jesus and follow him, that he will provide for our needs and protect us from all harm.  Of course, it will be a lie, which is always the way of Darkness – one deceitful and destructive lie after another!

 How far are we willing to go in our walk with Jesus?  As far as His love for us took Him?  Or is the way of the Lord just too steep, too difficult, too different for us to even try?  If you still aren’t convinced of the wisdom in following Jesus’ way, compare what a lifelong walk with the Lord will bring you, versus what rejecting God and picking up on the world’s offer of a much simpler walk with them.  The list will be drastically revealing!  It might even look something like this:

Light instead of darkness; hope instead of betrayal; truth instead of lies; the glory of heaven instead of the Earth’s ignorance; divine love instead of worldly hatred; eternal life instead of death by judgment; Godly unity instead of solitary debasement; the infinite blessing of Jesus instead of the fear and limitation that holds the world in its grasp.

 Do you see any difference?  And we have to choose between the two – will it be the eternal hope of God, or the condemnation of this world.  Let me leave you with the words of Mark’s final verse one more time:

 “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

 It appears that there is one more comparison - would you prefer the love of Christ, or His shame at the Judgment – which will it be for you?