Make a difference – Day 13
Jesus Christ Makes All the Difference
Um(Imi)bhalo weBhayibheli
1 kaPetru 1
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 1 Peter 1:21
Can you imagine where we would be without the Lord Jesus Christ? Through him, we believe in God – and he is our love, our light and the source of everything rich that we experience in life! There has never been a person remotely close to the person of Jesus Christ revealed in all of history; great men have come and gone, but their greatness has never come near the impact that Jesus has had on the world. He is even esteemed by followers of other faiths.
Following Jesus is dynamic and vibrant, and by no means an “empty way of life handed to us by our forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18). Instead, following him is about life through his death and life through his life; eternal life and abundant life. In fact, he is our life and his power is experienced in an even more dynamic way now, than when he was physically on earth, because of the sheer genius of the work of the Holy Spirit in his influence in many situations simultaneously and his ability to reach far and wide. Because of Jesus, Christianity is not a dead religion: it’s the only one that brings man close to his Creator, the Supreme God of the universe, in a personal, intimate relationship and not by an impersonal, mechanical routine.
Christ’s sacrifice for us as “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19) to a holy God holds supreme value. What more could we ask than to have God himself love us so earnestly that he would be concerned with our life on this earth, as well as where we will spend eternity; so much so that he sacrifices his spotless life for us, that with his precious blood we may be bought out of slavery to sin and have eternal life. No other faith has a suggestion of its deity sacrificing himself for his followers, let alone the world. When we understand all this, we appreciate the enormous significance of Jesus to this world.
Jesus spent three years teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God and his amazing plan to reach the world. It has reached me and you.
Will you carry it on?
