Just as Jesus demonstrated wisdom in creation, He will give you strategic wisdom to deal with any situation. Much is being made of the economic recession. Pharaoh, in the time of Joseph, was the mystical chris given a dream, the interpretation of which was that seven years of famine will follow seven years of plenty. Those seven years of famine are equivalent to our recession, yet God gave Joseph strategic wisdom to know exactly what to do. Similarly, God will give His people the solutions that are needed not only to weather this crisis, but to come out victoriously. If everything belongs to God, then we can be assured that there is no lack in His kingdom.Jesus sustains creation: He did not create it, then like an absentee landlord, leave it to function on its own. The same God who created is the same God who maintains His creation. It was Jesus who said that he will build His church and that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it. He will guard and keep what we commit to Him – our salvation and soul. Some of you are familiar with the story of Nicki Cruz. Nicki was a gang leader in New york city. When David Wilkerson shared the gospel with him, Nicki slapped him and threatened to kill him. Undaunted, David continued to preach the love of Christ. In spite of his threat, Nicki could not resist the conviction of the gospel message and eventually he and some of the other gang members accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Nicki eventually went on to become a powerful evangelist, ministering all over the world. Scripture tells us that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Glory is ascribed to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy.
Jesus is fully God: In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In John 5: 18 and 10: 33, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus because He equated Himself with God. Further, in John 8: 58, Jesus referred to Himself as “I Am, ” identifying Himself with Jehovah in the Old Testament. Jesus is Immanuel – God with us. Romans 9: 5 refers to Jesus as God. Jesus is also called Lord: verses in the Old Testament that are attributed to the lord are attributed to Him in the New Testament. When Saul had His miraculous encounter on the road to Damascus, he immediately recognized that the person speaking to him, Jesus, was the lord, Yahweh of the Old Testament who alone spoke to people from heaven.
Also, Jesus demonstrates the qualities of God: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, eternality and immutability. He is sovereign: He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He will rule forever; His throne is an everlasting throne. History has shown that no earthly government has lasted indefinitely. There have been various earthly kingdoms and rulers – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medes and Persians, Greece, Rome, Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler and others, but all of their kingdoms have been destroyed. However, Jesus’ kingdom will be established. His kingdom will be a kingdom of righteousness. There will be no sin, sickness, corruption, death, nor devils in this kingdom.
There will be life, joy, peace, perfection. As God, Jesus is superior to angels and He is worthy of worship. Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for sin. The Bible makes the following truths clear. All have sinned; man is born in sin and chooses to sin. Sin separated and continues to separate man from God. God is a holy God and we cannot enter into His presence in a sinful condition. Sin will take people to hell, which is eternal separation from God in a place of perpetual torment. Further, good works cannot save me: all of my righteousness is as filthy rags. I can never be good enough in and of myself to approach God. We were enslaved and needed to be liberated since we lacked the capacity to free ourselves. Jesus paid the price; He was the one who died at Calvary. It is through His sacrificial death that humanity can be reconciled to God. Scripture says of believers that we are bought with a price, we are no longer our own.
The blood of Jesus Christ does not only save me, but it continues to wash me of all sin. David, in the Old Testament, knew nothing of the blood of Jesus Christ, but when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and was convicted through the ministry of Nathan the prophet, he repented sincerely. Psalm 51 is a beautiful psalm of repentance. We are under the new covenant and the Bible tells us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1: 9). It is possible for believers to slip into sin for several reasons: we can be deceived; that’s the spirit of our age, and believers are not immune from deception. We can make mistakes; perhaps we were in an emotionally vulnerable place and succumbed to the influence of the enemy. We can fall short for whatever reason. The great thing to know is that while God does not excuse our sin, He does forgive it when we come to Him in sincere repentance.