Chemistry of Life (Luke 5:20)

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’” (Luke 5:20)

Man shall live by faith. There is no other way to access life without faith. Hebrews Eleventh Chapter tells so aptly how significant faith is in the sight of God, the Giver of life, saying “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

It is impossible to please God without faith. Why shall we please God? It’s because He first loved us despite of our weaknesses that we could not but disobey Him. God is forever love. He loved to make an oath with Abraham who obeyed and went to the land of promise even though he didn’t know where he was going.

Man shall be forgiven. All is born in Adam. Fatal sicknesses in man are guilt, despair, and shame. No one has been taught to be guilt-ridden, depressed, and dishonorable. Man is born that way. Forgiveness is the most essential and indispensable part of life.

Human skills and achievements in various forms even the great fortunes and fame cannot get it over with. Things of the world seems offering much but delivers nothing. The world is in complete darkness and blindness.

God has been shining a great light out of dark world through the Son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He came from the Father according to the scriptures and went back to the Father through the cross in Calvary according to the scriptures.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)

The cross of Jesus is the offense of the world for it is the symbol of shame, guilt, and despair. He bore and died for all our weaknesses, transgressions, and sins. After three days of death and burial in the cold and lonely tomb, our Lord Jesus Christ rose again with the power of God.

Everything has completed for the redemption of man in Christ Jesus. Faith, yes only faith is the agent for this whole process: from the understanding of the love of God amply demonstrated on the cross to the acceptance of that love and the possession of eternal life.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.’” (John 17:22-24)

God calls the children of light “friends.” Anyone who is in Christ is no longer enemy for they have been imparted eternal life and have crossed from death to life.

Oh, the Riches of God! (Mark 10:27)

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.’” (Mark 10:27)

All things are possible with God. Nothing is possible with man. This is a great life mystery. How deep, high, wide, and long it is! No one understands and fathoms its dimensions in full.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

‘Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?’

‘Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay them?’

For from him and through him and for him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

The moment of finding out one thing is the breaking discovery of our folly and silliness because what people value highly is detestable in God’s sight. It has been that way over and over down through the generations after generations. The moment of boasting something is the realization of our complete humiliation and embarrassment. Humans do not understand themselves.

“The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

– T. S. Elliot: The Rock

Human civilization and history amply demonstrate that it is true that we don’t understand ourselves. Scientific and technological enhancements and achievements are quite phenomenal but haven’t contributed at all in understanding the mystery of man. It’s all but trying after trying.

Why? It’s because they start approaching the matters with man. How can we break down the wall of conundrum? It is impossible with man but all things are possible with God. There is a God who knows all and who is all in all. He is the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth. Though He is invisible, He gave us the way to come to know Him. Jesus Christ is the way. He is the life and the truth.

Our God is the Lord of patience and faithfulness. His arms are wide open to accept anyone who comes to Him in the faith of the Jesus Christ. The basis of acceptance is solely on the blood of the Lamb of God who paid the price for the sin of the world in the past, the present, and the future. Bearing our sins, He was cut off even from the Father.

Jesus though He was the Son, He went back to the Father through the way of bloody cross. He took up the enormous pains and agonies of sin upon Himself in order to open the way to the Father. This is the way to understand humanity and its mystery.

The mystery of man is this: man is fallen and lost and destined to death and judgment, a Mediator has come to seek and save the lost through His death, burial, and resurrection, he has been made alive through the faith in the work of another, and Christ lives in him forever.

The new covenant has been arranged with anyone who is in Jesus Christ because a new life has been given to him. The old has gone and the new is here! The life received is the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

It’s eternal life! It never goes dry at all. It overflows out of rivers of living water from within. That life is available for anyone to take it by faith for He indwells within forever.

God is forever love without the shadow of turning. He does not change His mind to forgive anyone who confess his sins for He is just and faithful and cleanses from all unrighteousness.

The basis of repentance is plain: God loved us first. He loved us first when we were still sinners, so we love Him back. Loving God is to obey His words, giving even a cup of cold water to the needy. God promised such a person will not lose his reward.

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward." (Matthew 10:42)

The reward is to bear the fruits of righteousness and the Spirit. Love, joy, and peace will blossom and never disappear from within. No one can measure the depth, height, length, and width of love, joy, and peace for they are eternal.

That’s why Paul praises God, saying “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” May the riches of God be filled and rooted in our hearts!

Christ Is Real (John 7:37-38)

“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’” (John 7:37-38) 

Christmas is on its way with great expectations and enthusiasm. It is the day of our Lord Jesus Christ who was God and yet became in the likeness of man in order seek and save the lost.  The coming of Christ Jesus the Lord has long been foretold and anticipated in history. 

Why? It’s because it is the good news for all peoples on earth. All peoples are under the spiritual forces of evil and the powers of this dark world until the stronger one comes and liberates them after binding the evil forces of devil. That’s the message of Christmas. The coming of Christ Jesus is for any individual to be released from the burden and yoke of worries, anxieties, and even terrors in life.

The first century people in the small corner of the earth had privileged to see the Lord Jesus Christ, walking on the street, teaching the kingdom, and healing the sick and driving out the demons. But that privilege of the people in the first century is ours as well in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in the realm of spirit.  

Whatever diseases were healed. However serious the demon-possessed were completely made clean. The leper, the paralyzed, the invalid, the mute and deaf, the blind, the lame were made well. Witnessed on changing water into wine, feeding five thousands, walking on the water, raising the dead. Most significantly, listened the kingdom preaching out of His own voice and lips.

Nothing lacked to those who were with Him, physically, mentally, and spiritually. With one condition, by and through faith in the Father and God of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the first century followers of Jesus were fully and perfectly blessed and made available all the resources for life whenever and wherever necessary, so has all been throughout the centuries.

It is equally true that as to those who didn’t believe in Jesus Christ in the first century nothing was available out of the Father in heaven, so has all been throughout the centuries.

The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is quite a revolutionary experience to whoever has received Him as Lord and Master. It is indeed an extraordinary and supernatural event in anyone’s life with its phenomenal and inescapable ecstasy.

It is a great misunderstanding if that marvelous experience is just thought or considered as of momentary and temporary pass. Sadly it is true that many a people think that way. It is not difficult to see such a person who was once excited and glowing but is now found dull, weary, tired and dreary in real life experience.

However, that’s not what the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ means at all. Rather, the Scripture speaks exactly opposite. It’s the continual experience of love, joy, and peace now and forevermore in Christ Jesus. That’s for what Christ Jesus has come. He is real ever more now as He was real in the first century.

He is a living God who rose from the dead as exactly promised. Life with such a Person never gets boring, tired, weary, and dull but always exciting, vital, adventurous, and meaningful for He is Lord of all.

 
The advent of Christ is an eternal event. He opened His mouth, preaching the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!” He still speaks in our hearts the same message with loving and tender voice.