John 7:25-27 English Standard Version

Can This Be the Christ?

25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 26 And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? 27 But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

Yesterday’s title was Fiction so I thought it best to talk about reality.

Some of the people in Jerusalem are questioning their reality. They have seen and heard Jesus. There is the perception of conviction, that their religious leaders want this man dead. There is also the perception that the reason why they want Jesus dead is because He has proclaimed Himself to be the Son of Man as foretold by Daniel. Their perception is that the Son of Man will be their Messiah, the Christ.

Now comes the real questions. Why aren’t those leaders doing anything to stop Jesus? This brings into question the common man’s conception of their leaders beliefs. Do they know something we don’t know?

The second question is vital to their own reality. Why do they believe that when Christ comes that no one will know where He comes from? They know Jesus came from Nazareth but in reality did Jesus come from Nazareth? He was born in Bethlehem. 

John 6:42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’ ?”

Their reality does not match the reality of Jesus Christ. What is to be believed?

John 2:23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

Seeing is believing. Now we are left with our own reality, Do we see and believe only because we have witnessed signs and wonders? Does Jesus appear to be real to us now since it has been so long since He walked on earth?

What is our reality?

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Has Jesus blessed you?

Ephesians 1:3-5 English Standard Version

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

Science Fiction is still fiction, but because it is sciency some people tend to accept it rather than accepting the truth. It is entertaining, the truth is too real for many, too painful. Well it should be.

In this offering I want to point to Ephesians 1:5.  “he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,” It is not a complete sentence, it is parsed. The sentence begins with “In love” which was at the end of verse 4. That sentence ends with verse 6 “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

That sentence should read “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

The driving force behind His predestination is love. God is love and He did this because He loved us enough to see that this was accomplished. His will had purpose, adoption HIs will had method, grace. His purpose should be praised but if we parse the sentence praise is often left out of the teaching in order to focus on the subject at hand which is often predestination.

Only 4 English translations mention love being the reason behind His will and they all parse the sentence leaving out praising God. If we continue to leave out the important parts of the conversation in our teachings we may end up with something that is absent of purpose and praise.

The whole truth is not a series of parsed statements. All the Word works together to accomplish God’s will. Many of these subjects are difficult to understand and difficult to teach in a pure logical method. We do not find logic is a word to describe faith.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith isn’t logical, it is assurance and conviction.