Christmas - the Birth of Jesus

Christmas - the Birth of Jesus
Watercolour
7 x 10
25/12/15
30 minutes

It has been a more restful season at work for the last few weeks (thanks to God's blessings!), but regretfully there has just been so much other stuff going on that I have not been able to focus on Paint for Christ as much as I would like. But thank God for giving me the time and inspiration to do a simple piece for Christmas this year! I put this piece together after some inspiration from a few online images; am still working on developing my own original pieces (so that I properly respect the work of other artists), please bear with me as I slowly develop my skills in this area.

The main accounts of Jesus' birth in the New Testament is set out in Matthew and Luke; I've reproduced the account in Luke 2:1-20 (NIV) as follows:

"The Birth of Jesus

2 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

 

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

 

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

 

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

The following separately sets out the extracts on Jesus's birth from Matthew 1:18-25 KJV:

^"18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

¹⁹ Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

²⁰ But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. ²¹ And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. ²² Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ²³ Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

²⁴ Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: ²⁵ And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus."

My reflections on the above extracts this Christmas is as follows:

1. The Miracle of Christmas. Christmas is a true miracle. It is a reminder that nothing is impossible with God. The very birth of Jesus through virgin Mary is symbolic of this. As Jesus came as a perfect sacrifice to save us from our sins, in order for Him to be truly free from the curse of Adam and Eve (who had fallen and had a sinful nature within them and their descendants), He came down as the son of God, reborn from the Holy Ghost, fully Man at the same time, into our world to free us from our slavery to sin. The salvation of Mankind is a huge miracle, a gift that was difficult to comprehend, and now that we have been blessed by the benefit of God's wisdom set out in the Bible, we should love and appreciate this free gift and glorious miracle which changes and reforms lives, and pray for continued love, faith, wisdom and strength of character to be able to live out a life that is transformed and pleasing to God!
2. Trust in the Lord. It is difficult to fully understand and comprehend God's plans at all times. But we need to constantly pray for faith to be able to be obedient to His commands. A great illustration is the testimony of Mary and Joseph through this. During their time, it was unheard of for a virgin to be pregnant. For Mary to have accepted this pregnancy obediently (she would surely have been subject to much gossip), and for Joseph to have accepted the truth and Mary as his wife, was a huge act of faith. Furthermore, they were called away from their home through the census, had to travel miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem (during Mary's pregnancy), and had to dwell in Bethlehem without good accommodation. This was not a smooth and effortless journey, but one which required much trust, faith and obedience. May we continually pray for faith through the trying periods of our lives so that we can be obedient to God's perfect plans!
3. The Humility of Christ's Birth. Christ had a humble birth. He came into a world where there was no room for him. He was born and placed in a manger because there were no guest rooms available at the inns. He was visited by shepherds, and subsequently some wise men, not the kings of the land. He was not born in a palace, and although He was the greatest king, He did not have a luxurious life. This is not what we, in our prideful and fallen world, are used to. We are often taught from young to crave and respect and worship power characterised by strength, worldliness and abundance, not to be servant leaders as Christ Himself was. But He came to serve us and not to be served, and Christmas is a great reminder to realign our lives and principles towards being humble servant-leaders, just as Christ himself was from the very moment of His birth.
4. God's Timely Plans. Luke sets out the account of God's timeliness of events. The timing of the census, the hard heart of Herod and his evilness, and the messages sent to Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men through the angels, all enabled the prophecies set out in the Old Testament to be met and fulfilled in their own time. This is a reminder that we should always focus on God's perfect timing, not our own, as His plans are greater than our comprehension and He knows far better what is the best for us. This may be trying and difficult but may we always look to God for the faith to trust and obey and believe.
5. The Heart of God's Plans. The heart of God's plans through Christ is salvation through His perfect sacrifice and example, and this is a beautiful gift that we often do not appreciate enough. We often do not know what it means for Christ to have come fully as Man, to have been rejected and despised by His creation. Coming down to earth is an act of true sacrifice and vulnerability which was founded in love; He allowed Himself to serve us fully and be hurt by us, and is fully able to completely empathise with us in each moment of rejection and darkness. Yet we often turn away from Him and indulge in our senseless worldly pleasures and sins. This is something that hurts Him greatly, and out of love and appreciation for His gift, we should avoid such sinful behaviour and look towards Him in thanksgiving and love instead.
6. Worship Christ & Spread the Good News. The birth of Christ is a glorious event. The Lord called to the shepherds to this event; angels were signing of the glories of His birth and the shepherds later went on to spread the good news. For this is good news; we have been saved through His precious sacrifice! Thus we should work to spread the good news to the people around us!
7. Make Room in Our Hearts for God. In this fallen world, Christmas is often an over-commercialised event; coupled with the bonus season, it is often a time of endless extravagance and gifts that focus on self and loved ones, but not enough on God (if at all). But we should not be intoxicated by possessions (or distracted by worldly things) - rather, we should intoxicate ourselves in Christ's presence and shower the world around us with the same type of love which Christ gave - love founded on compassion, empathy, mercy and justice.

Merry Christmas 2015!

Jonah & the Big Fish

Jonah and the Big Fish
Watercolour
9" x 12"
40 minutes

I have been going through a particularly busy and difficult period at work lately, and regretfully have not put up any new posts in awhile. This watercolor picture of Jonah and the Big Fish, an artistic impression of an image I found online, was a painting that I did a few weeks back, and it speaks to me in particular because I struggle with the same issues as Jonah - difficulties in ministry, obedience, lack of compassion, self-righteousness and constant anger.

The full story extracted from the book of Jonah (NIV) provides as follows:

"1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

³ But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa,where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

⁴ Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. ⁶ The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

⁹ He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)

¹¹ The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

¹² “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

¹³ Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. ¹⁴ Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” ¹⁵ Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. ¹⁶ At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

Jonah’s Prayer

¹⁷ Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2 

¹ From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. ² He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
³ You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
⁴ I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’
⁵ The engulfing waters threatened me,
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.
⁶ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.

⁷ “When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.

⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

¹⁰ And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.'

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

³ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. ⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

⁶ When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. ⁷ This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. ⁸ But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone callurgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. ⁹ Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion

4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. ² He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now,Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

⁵ Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then theLord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

¹⁰ But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

My personal reflections on the above account are as follows:

1. Ministering for God's kingdom. As Christians, we are called to minister to both Christians and non-Christians through sharing the gospel, loving correction and being the salt and light of this fallen world. For the most part, once I had converted, I did not expect to find that ministering to people could be hindered by personal bias or issues. Oftentimes, sharing the gospel came easily to me. However, like Jonah, through time, I found that I had multiple personal barriers that hindered my ministry. Jonah did not want to preach on repentence to evil people because he thought them to be unworthy of God's mercy. I, too, gradually realized that I had my own barriers. I am not a naturally warm person - I often need (much) time to warm up to people and a healthy amount of personal space and consequentially I find it hard to reach out to people who intrude my personal space, who are socially exhausting, whom I have no chemistry with, whom I feel are unkind or incompetent or who simply rub me off the wrong way (even if I know that this is through no fault of their own). I used to justify my general hostility/struggles, believing that maybe my natural struggles was an indication that God did not intend to use me to reach out to these people. But Jonah's account shows that despite internal biases, God may still want us to continue to fight these biases, so that we may reach out to these people and draw them to His kingdom. Hence, we should obediently and prayerfully seek to overcome our internal biases in our ministry so that we can work to achieve God's ultimate glory and purposes.
2. Obedience to God. Often times, we are willful disobedient to God's commands because there are things that we choose to hold on to and refuse to submit to God's  greater design. When we disobey, it shows a lack of faith in God and a desire for our (often selfish) wills and plans to prevail over His. For example, God tells us not to hoard money; often, we refuse to give generously and continue to hoard because we refuse to believe that God has better plans for our money than for it to sit comfortably in our bank accounts for our (sometimes frivolous and meaningless) consumption. Or God tells us to submit to authority; we refuse because we think our ideas and plans are so much better and we deserve more than to have to submit to another (perhaps undeserving) person. God told Jonah to preach in Nineveh - Jonah did not want to do so because he wanted to see them punished for their misdeeds. In all of these instances, we have an idea of what we, in our limited human understanding and in all our sinfulness, want to achieve, sometimes in contradiction to God's greater purposes. We find ways to justify what we want or what we think is right. And that's where the danger lies. Because our plans will never be comparable to the greater plans and designs of the all-knowing, ever-loving and ever-wise God. No doubt, we will continue to struggle in our quest to be obedient to God, but in this struggle, we should always prayerfully fight our sinful nature to submit to Him and be fully obedient. In any event, disobedience is futile because God is sovereign. Jonah disobeyed God, but God ultimately disciplined and brought him to humble obedience (a process  which could have been avoided if Jonah had been obedient from the start).
3. Repentance and God's Grace and Compassion. God extended both grace and compassion to Jonah (who had disobeyed His instructions) and the people of Nineveh (who had disobeyed His commands). Both were sinful. But both had repented - and the repentant heart of a sinner with faith in the Lord is pleasing to His eyes. Jonah had repented by confessing to his sins on the boat, taking responsibility and being thrown aboard, praying humbly to God for salvation and thereafter obeying God's command to preach in Nineveh. The people of Nineveh had repented by humbly clothing themselves in sackcloth and renouncing their evil ways. However, in being angry at God's compassion to Nineveh, Jonah had clearly misunderstood the basis of God's grace - he had erroneously thought that part of this should be based on conduct and works. But in actuality, since the fall of Adam and Eve, all Men are fallen and need God's grace; none are, on their own, worthy of any salvation. As Luke 5:31-32 (NIV) states: "
   Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
   I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
4. Comfort vs Love. God had used the plant and Jonah's anger in relation thereto to gently illustrate clearly how Jonah valued his comfort (from a plant) more greatly than the lives of many. How can this be? Yet sometimes we find ourselves unknowingly ensnared in the same trap. I remember how I was once very exhausted and could not find a taxi for more than half an hour; in my angst tears came to my eyes and I was not pleased with God at all. That was really spoilt of me, and as I was reflecting on this passage, I realized that I am often more preoccupied and emotional about my own personal comfort than caring about doing God's work or being compassionate about the trials of God's people. For all of my self-righteousness at times, I, like Jonah, have a very skewed perspective of what is important and pleasing to God, and constantly get unduly worked up over the wrong things.

May we draw wisdom from Jonah's experience and continually walk forward in our relationship with God!

Victory on the Cross

Victory on the Cross
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
11/09/15
1 hour

This is my first oil painting, and is one of my favourite paintings to date. I chose to paint this image of Christ’s death (with His spirit leaving Him) from a picture that I found online, as it meant so much to my faith.

Further to passages setting out Christ’s betrayal, torment and mocking, Matthew 27:45-55 (NIV) sets out the account of Christ’s death as follows:

“The Death of Jesus

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”

Christ’s death (and His subsequent resurrection, marking victory over death) is the hallmark of the Christian faith. Since the fall of Man through Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, the whole of Mankind have been cursed with sin. In order to be reunited with our just and righteous God, Man had to be restored to righteousness. In the old testament times, animal sacrifices were used as an illustration of what was needed to bridge this gap; after Christ came as the perfect sacrifice, our relationship with God is restored through our love for, belief in and obedience to Christ.

I used to struggle with this concept deeply as a non-believer. I used to wonder, why would God make an imperfect creature such as Man, doomed for damnation, to be salvaged through such a cruel method involving a completely innocent human sacrifice? However, now, after being blessed with God’s grace and having been enlightened, it means so much to be able to share my new insights on the meaning of this picture to me:

1.     Free will. The story of our salvation with Christ begins with free will. God graciously granted free will to Man, which he created as a relational being in His image. What was valuable to God was for Man to choose to exercise our will freely to conform to His word, to be a family with Him in the kingdom of His righteousness. However, Man fell away from God and continuously exercised free will for ungodly purposes. Even those who loved God deeply would often fall from grace. After the fall, nobody, on their own strength, was able to exercise free will in a manner fully pleasing to God.

2.     God is righteous and just. There are consequences for the ways we choose to exercise our free will. There is so much open sharing about God’s love, but an equally important aspect of God’s character that is less shared about is His just and righteous nature (and the anger and wrath that often follows from this). As Psalms 9:8 (NIV) states: “He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.” To be judged before such a righteous God is truly a scary thought. When I was a non-believer, I used to have long debates on God’s “righteousness”. I didn’t question the existence of sin (which is rampant), but questioned why the Christian God was such a bloodthirsty God, demanding the sacrifice and blood of perfect innocent animals (and subsequently Jesus) as penalty for sin. While I recognized that it would otherwise be our blood which needs to be the price, since He makes the laws, I felt that a practical way was for exceptions to be made, without blood having to be shed. For what did the poor animals (and Jesus) do to deserve punishment for our transgressions? But as I matured in my faith I realized that these systems were in place because God cannot compromise on His perfect standards and wanted us to recognize the severity of sin. God demanded animal sacrifices as an illustration on the severity of sin and the holiness of God, and Christ, the ultimate sacrifice, was a gift of God taking our place Himself to bear the rightful punishment of our sins.

3.     God loves us. God is a deeply relational being, and wants nothing more than to relate to each of us personally. But that is not all. Spending time together is just one aspect of love. Love also requires an aspect of vulnerability, of sacrifice. To love is to be open and to allow ourselves to be hurt. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (ESV).  Jesus was God, but He came down to the world as a Man, fully vulnerable, to reach out to us and love us. He could have stayed in heaven, but He did not. He came down to be with us. He opened Himself to us. He was stung by rejection. He was humiliated and hung up on the cross. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” 1 John 3:16 (ESV). God loved us THIS much, to come down as a Man, to be mocked and humiliated and rejected and betrayed subsequently, all for our sake.

4.     Christ is the intersection of God’s love and His justice. Christ came to take our sins away, and is the perfect intersection between God’s love and justice. It may be difficult for us to acknowledge this, but we are horrible sinners, each and every one of us, and we all deserve God’s wrath. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV). Christ was God. He did nothing wrong. “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 (ESV) “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV). “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV).

5.     Christ’s Sacrifice is Necessary. John 3:14-15 (NIV) states that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” Jesus had reached out to Nicodemus using a passage in the Old Testament (Numbers 21:5-9), where the Lord sent venomous snakes to punish the Israelites for their incessant complaints in the desert. When Moses interceded on their behalf, God instructed Moses to make a bronze replica of a snake and raise it above the camp on the pole. Those who were bitten would be healed if they looked at it and acknowledged their guilt and expressed faith in God’s forgiveness and power. Likewise, Jesus had to be crucified (i.e. lifted up), and His death would form a necessary part of God’s salvation plan. Such salvation is independent on any works or righteousness on our part, and is based on full dependence on God’s free gift to us. That of course does not mean that we are not to do good works – rather, we are saved by Christ for good works, and not saved by ourselves by good works. God was victorious through Christ’s death. The battle against Satan was won through Christ’s death on the cross, and our victory over sin has been secured through Christ.

6.     Christ was obedient onto death; we are to ‘take up the cross’ and follow Him. “Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. And God designated him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:8-10 (NLT). Christ was afraid, but He was obedient and endured. Ultimately, He saved us from the penalty of our sins, and was exalted beyond measure. As believers, we should follow suit in Christ’s example as God only has the best plans for us. As stated in Matthew 16:24-27(NIV): “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” As seen in the foregoing passages, a true disciple of Christ is one that does not deny Him, but instead denies themselves (i.e. their sinful human nature) to follow Him. This means that as Christians, we should walk in His path, led by His spirit, fully obedient to God’s directions as Christ himself was. There are eternal consequences to our decisions, and we are wise if we choose to follow the footsteps of our saviour who has redeemed our souls with His own blood. There are times where it will be difficult, where life may seem unfair (i.e. Jesus’ death was through no fault of His own). But if we choose to be obedient to God, we can become great tools which He uses to accomplish His glory for His kingdom and people!

7.    Eternal Consequences and Rewards. Christ is victorious over death and over sin; even if our passage on earth is daunting and challenging (as earth is a sin-filled place full of imperfections), we can expect eternal rewards for our obedience to him. Revelations 21:9-26 sets out the following vision of John:

“One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

The above account illustrates the eternal glory that awaits those who are obedient to God’s words; in contrast, on the day of judgment, for those who do not follow Christ, it is written that “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” Revelations 20:15 (NIV). There, “…[t]hey will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Revelations 20:10 (NIV).

For God had created the heavens and earth, and had loved us so much that He had reached out to Mankind repeatedly and had called us to repentance to His truth. He had even come down to earth to die for our sake, to bridge the gap between His righteousness and His love, so that we may be able to stand with Him in His presence. But those who choose to remain willfully blind and/or deaf to His love, call, justice and truth will not be able to join Him in eternal glory after the first death, but will be forever separated from Him for eternity. To be in a world without the presence of God eternally is indeed a terrifying thought.

Which choice will you make?

8.     Prayerfully Seeking God. When I was a non-believer, I found it difficult to believe or “buy into” the truth of God’s word because this was only one of the many “possible truths” out there in view of the multiple religions worldwide. I always believed that there was one ultimate truth (that we would be stupid not to follow/acknowledge), but had a difficulty discerning what the ultimate truth was. However, as I was sharing my struggles, one of my Christian friends told me to simply pray about it if I was sincerely seeking the truth. For Jeremiah 23:13 (NIV) promises us that “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” So I did. God did not answer my prayer immediately – there was no instant enlightenment. Rather, He brought me through a really painful process that stretched over more than a year, which made me realize that He is real and which spoke to me in a way nothing else could. If anyone is struggling with difficulties in accepting the Christian message but believes that it could be the ultimate truth, I urge you to pray sincerely with all of your heart. Because these prayers can work wonders!