“Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He has the power to forgive sins. He generally has all the power in heaven and on earth (Mat.28:18). He has the power to punish the disobedience of His children (Heb.12:4-8). He has the power to punish sinners here on this earth, but does He also have the power to save the sinner?
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
(John 3:16-17)
Therefore, every person who believes that Jesus died for his sins on the Cross will be saved. To such a person, God not only gives salvation from hell, but also a new life, life with God. The heart of a person who has recognized Jesus as his Lord will be full of praise and gratitude to Him.
Dear friend! If you have not yet come to know Christ, then know that everything He did for you through suffering on Golgotha, He did because He loves you and is waiting for your repentance, the turning of your heart to Him. He doesn’t want you to die. And you are perishing now, if you are without Christ, you are walking on a wide road that will lead you to hell.
But there is another way. It is narrow and thorny. It is difficult to walk on it, but only it will lead you to the Cross, on which you will see Jesus wounded beyond recognition, hanging there because your sins, not nails, chained Him to the tree, this cross will show you the way to Heaven.
Jesus was dead, but on the third day He rose again! Resurrection to justify you. His sacrifice, His Blood was enough to cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living and true God (Hebrews 9:14). He does not wish you death and he does not wish you eternal torment in the lake of fire, but he wants communion with you already here on this earth and in heaven. Do you believe this?
If you have already believed in Christ, believed in God and the Spirit of God, who raised Christ from the dead, lives in you, then let this be a word of persuasion and encouragement to all who are waiting for Him for salvation.
We will not leave our gatherings, as in some customs; but let us persuade one another, and all the more, the more you see the day of that day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)
In one of his sermons, Jesus said the following words:
Not everyone who says to Me: Lord! Lord!, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who fulfills the will of My Heavenly Father. Many will say to Me that day: Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name? and wasn’t it in Your name that demons were cast out? and have not many miracles been done in Your name? And then I will give them: I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity.
(Matthew 7:21-23)
It sounds as sobering as a cold shower. How is Jesus? Are you not going to let us into Heaven? We prophesied in your name, cast out demons, performed miracles – Jesus! Jesus! Jesus will say the same words to us: “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who work iniquity,” if we treat the Word of God lightly, disobeying what it teaches us, if we allow sin, shameful passions, loves (love of money, for enrichment). If we do not repent and leave everything that connects us with earthly and sinful things, then we will be condemned together with this world (Col. 3:1-17).
The Word of God says directly:
Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of Mine and fulfills them, I will liken to a prudent man who built his house on a rock; And it rained, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and rushed to that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on a rock.
(Matthew 7:24-25)
Have you ever asked the question, “How do I hear what God is saying to me?” and “How can I fulfill His Word?”. If not, then it may be time to ask, and try to find answers to them.
Our God is a God who does not keep silent. He says to you. He has communication with you. The Bible is God’s Word for you. If you believe this, every time you open your Bible, God will speak to you.
And the more you stay in the Word, the more the Holy Spirit can remind you of the words of Jesus (John 14:26). It is the Holy Spirit who will expose you in sin in order to lead you to repentance, to awareness of the holiness of God. He will comfort you and give you the perfect world of your heart, which is only in Jesus and which this world does not have.
What does it mean to do God’s will? This means leaving the fulfillment of one’s will, burying it on the Cross and presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, for intelligent service to Him (Rom. 12:1). It means being obedient to God in everything. Your first obedience to God was when you believed that Christ was crucified for your sins, died and rose on the third day for your justification. After God brought you in the blessed gathering of saints (Ps.132), to the Church, He continued to teach you to follow His Word, speaking to you through preaching, prophecy, through the brothers in the Church. Now that you are already in the Church and have hope for salvation
“which for the soul is as it were a safe and strong anchor, and enters into the interior behind the veil” (Hebrews 6:19)
you must be …especially attentive to what you hear, so as not to fall away. For, if the word proclaimed through the Angels was firm, and every crime and disobedience received a righteous retribution, then how can we escape, neglecting salvation, which, having been first preached by the Lord, has been confirmed in us by rumors from Him, with the testimony of God by signs and wonders and various things?
(Hebrews 2:1-4)
We will not escape punishment if we are heedless of His Word and remain outside the gate of heaven if we do not do what our God tells us to do (his will). Aaron’s sons Nadav and Aviud were burned by the fire of God for bringing before the Lord someone else’s fire, which He did not command them to bring (Leviticus 10:1-2).
Saul kept alive from what the Lord had sworn: King Agag and the best of what was sworn to sacrifice to God
“For disobedience, because he rejected the Lord’s word, and the Lord rejected him so that he would not be king over Israel.” (1 Kings 15:26)
We, being sons and daughters of the Holy God, must remember at what price we were bought, and that we are not our own, but belong to Him. We are freed from sin, but we are slaves of Jesus, slaves of righteousness, and a slave cannot have his own will – he is subject to his master in everything. Thank God that now Jesus Christ is our Lord, the Lord of our lives, and we must obey him, not sin. After all, Jesus himself, becoming in appearance similar to us, was tempted by Satan, was humiliated and crucified, fulfilled the will of God the Father, redeemed us with His Blood, reconciling us with the Creator. He never did anything of Himself, but what His Father told Him to do. Jesus is an example of obedience for us.
Jesus says to them: My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to do his work. Don’t you say that there are still four months and the harvest will come? And I say to you: Raise your eyes and look at the fields, how they turned white and had time for the harvest.
(John 4:34-35)
It is noteworthy that after the words about fulfilling the will of His Father, Jesus tells the disciples about unsaved people who seek salvation. They are referred to as fields that have turned white and have reached the harvest. In another place, in the Gospel of Matthew, it is said that it is necessary to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest.
Many people who live near you have already reached the harvest. Many need the Truth, the Word of salvation, the Word of the Cross, the Word of the resurrection, hope, grace and love of God. If you still do not know the will of God regarding your vocation and ministry, then pray and God will answer you. Pray that God will send His preachers, missionaries, evangelists to preach the Gospel throughout the earth, and especially pray for those you know.
Finally, I want to quote the words of Jesus about the will of the Father:
…for I came down from heaven not to do My will, but the will of the Father who sent Me. The will of the Father who sent me is that nothing of what he has given me should be destroyed, but everything should be resurrected on the last day. The will of the One who sent Me is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
(John 6:38-40)
So let’s leave all kinds of plans that we build in our lives according to our own ideas, surrender ourselves and our ways to God, learn to seek the fulfillment of His will in everything, so that we can understand with all the saints the love that surpasses understanding, that of Christ and will be filled with all the fullness of God. May the Lord bless you!
Amen.
Oleksiy Kolesnikov
