BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES

St. Paul encourages us to not to give up on something that is vital to our Bible believing life. This Bible believing life propels us to confess the Lord Jesus Christ our only hope. And the Lord enables us to press forward to such a Christ centred hope without any second thoughts.

We do hold fast to our second thoughts, because we are bent upon our efforts to move towards repentance. We take pleasure in giving more weights to our manmade ordinance than believing in the done deal of the Lord Jesus Christ. What can take away our sins if not the blood of Jesus Christ? Who can forgive our transgressions if not our Lord Jesus Christ? It is neither law nor rituals instituted by worship Centers that deliver us from our sins and offer salvation. It is the sacrificial atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ that has brought Salvation to us.

Our God designs a specific plan for all of us, because He has chosen us to be His elect or nation before the foundation of the world. It is very sad to focus more on the worldy affairs and determine our course of action in the future. When Our Lord Jesus holds our future, we try our best to live out our daily life conforming to the patterns of the world. We need to understand the fact that nobody can change the plan of God that He has already designed for His people. Thus the chosen ones should come back to the Lord Jesus and submit their will. As Paul states in Hebrew 12:1-2, let us set aside our old manner of life and embrace the Christ-fashioned life so that we can fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus and run for the sake of the gospel of Christ. If it is not our primary goal, we will soon end up with corrupt and deceitful dreams and desires. We will pledge our allegiance to deny the Lord Jesus and his precious gospel of the truth. Our very life will be filled with compromises and all inclusive kind of secular attitudes toward the risen Saviour.

We may not know the entire design of our life, but He knows about it. Many things may seem coincidental to our mind, but God is behind every aspect of our life. All we can do is to obey His commandments and leave the consequences to Christ. As a fact of the matter, the Lord Jesus Christ sees the beginning from the end and He has the clear picture of any outcome or results in regards to earthly and eternal lives. God is certain about His peoples’ life on earth, because He has predestined us, called us, justified us and has glorified us. What a great privilege it is! He has already done a great thing in our life. It means He has saved us to be His people and His nation. What more good things do we want?

This verse addresses two key points: those who are poor in spirit blessed and they own the kingdom of heaven. Who is considered the poor in spirit? How does the kingdom of heaven belong to them? Thus our Lord Jesus is concerned about ‘the poor-in-spirit-condition’ and ‘kingdom-of-heaven-state’.

Our Lord God is known for his quality of being morally right, blamelessness, honesty, sinlessness, and irreproachability. He is for fair-mindedness, impartialness, and for lack of prejudice. Our God is not empowered by all these attributes, because they are not defined by human beings. His nature is morally upright, honest, sinless, irreproachable, fair-minded, impartial and unbiased.

God is not evil and evil minded. When He created the earth and its creation, He found them good and Jesus Christ was doing good things all through his ministry for all. Even the Pilot, before sending Jesus to the Cross couldn’t find any wrong or evil in Him.

We humans have the greater ability to conceive ideas and outlook beyond one’s imagination. Our dreams are always traveling to the far extreme, because our mind has such power to build powerful models of living and non living essentials. But the book of Proverbs says that God’s idea and outlook are firm and long standing. All our earthly plans never stand for ever, but God’s ultimate purpose for our salvation in the world.

The prophet Isaiah foretells the arrival of the Lord Jesus and of his sole purpose stating “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.“(Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV) It is God’s eternal plane for the humanity that the world would need Jesus as its Saviour. It is God’s perfect plan that Jesus would come to the earth to save sinners, die on the cross, buried under the earth and on the third day would rise from the dead to rule us forever in our hearts. It doesn’t stop thee, but he would come soon as a judge to judge the entire world. And that day is not far away.

The Psalmist boldly acknowledges the fact that God makes him understand the importance of eternal life. The phrase “the path of life” is juxtaposed the path of death. It is Jesus who straightens our path. He is the way, the truth, and the light. Jesus is life and breath of our whole living and he came to the world to save us, sinners. Jesus Christ has revealed his deity to his people in the gospel of the truth. Those who believe the gospel of the Christ have come into His righteousness and faithfulness. As a result, Jesus makes them understand “the path of life” and warns them against the path of death.

The Lord God after witnessing Eli and his two sons’ negligent and ungodly attitude and behaviour expresses his disappointment in great anguish and suffering. God is emotional, relational and rational. He in fact, invites us to come along with him and reason together in regards to our present reality, repentance and salvation (Isaiah 1:18). He cannot be vindictive and biased towards the motion of the world and his creations but be righteous and faithful to his promises. He is fair enough to make his stand perfect for all human beings, especially his servants who deal with Him and His righteousness “with contempt”(1 Samual 2:17).

God will respect and treat a person with high esteem who duly honours, loves Him with all his or her heart and soul (Deuteronomy 10:12). When he or she loves the Lord God with all his or her mind, heart, strength, spirit and soul, the person serves the Lord with atmost reverence and humility. And this attitude towards the service unto God’s altar was missing from Eli’s household. Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas were not serious about God and his heart after his great plan for the world that he would bring his only son, Jesus Christ to us. Eli’s household was ordained to prepare the way for the entry of the gospel of Christ, but they treated this massive desire of God with disregard or callousness.

God does not need anybody to accomplish his plan, but He takes pleasure to make us humans be part of his kingdom building business. It is a great privilege to join hands with God and work along with him to fulfill his purpose-sharing the gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth. When we are not inclined to understand this noble purpose, we will be replaced with His newly elect. He would raise his people to proclaim his good news to the world. God will be glorified by His elect at the appointed time and nobody can put a full stop to his divine work designed for the humanity.

Let’s consider these questions:

1. Do we honour God or dishonour Him?
2. How do we honour God?
3. Do we and our household treat God and the godly affairs with contempt?
4. How can we understand the heart-beat of God?
5. What do we think about “the service of God and service unto God”?

It is amazing to know our God’s attributes. First, God is accommodating to his children. God who is full of compassion gives an open invitation to all those who are burdened by worldly matters. He says that the people who are oppressed by their sins and socio-politico economic conditions truly find their rest in Him. Second, He is the Lord God who offers us relaxation and space for our wearied soul. Nobody in the world can guarantee repose, but Jesus Christ assures people rest at his feet. It is Jesus who transforms the humanity and calls them to be his disciples for preaching the gospel in a biblical fashion. And this act indeed gives us perfect peace. Third, Jesus says that he is “gentle and lowly in heart”. His gentleness and humility can be best understood by his purpose driven life completed on the cross of Calvary. When Jesus was tried to call him a criminal deserving death sentence, he was so humble that he did not open his mouth and when a deserving criminal insulted him while hanging on the cross, Jesus was absolutely gentle and became a source of confidence to other condemned hanging beside him.