REASONS 4 BELIEVING

“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” – Matthew 4:17

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why did God create me?”  Obviously it comes down to – love!  God’s love is not that He needed us, but that He wanted us – individually!  God’s love is from eternity, before we were ever born. That is why the word “elect” is so often used in the New Testament. People are afraid of election, but election is basically – love before time. That is why the believer can never commit a sin that would surprise God to the point where He would no longer love us. God from eternity loves us perfectly, which means that He cannot love us more and that He will never love us any less. However, in time, God expressed His love by creating us with individuality, and just as each snowflake is unique in it’s own way so are we created unique. 

In the first century, during a time of great social and racial tension, the apostle Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28), and that Christ is “our peace” who has broken down divisions (Ephesians 2:14).  Sadly, there are many man-made divisions within Christianity.  For example, the most popular end-time belief system taught in Christianity today (Pre-mil Dispensationalism) exalts the Jewish people over all other people in the end.  We know what we call exalting one group of people over another?  However, a simple study of God’s word shows that the word “race” (as we understand it today) is not found in the Bible.  The closes thing we have is the word “Gentiles” in the New Testament, which is used ninety-nine times in the original Greek language and all but four of those times it is the word “ethnos” where we get our English word “ethnic.” 

In our verse we read of Jesus entering into Galilee of the Gentiles (ethnic nations) to preach the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 4:15-17).  These ethnic people, who were not corrupted with the religious systems of their day, were also in spiritual darkness and was in need of the Savior.  You see, the Jews, in the time of Christ, were much like what we see in our corrupt version of religion today.  Rather than having a heart for God by helping others, the leaders and priest abused and misused the people for greed and gain.  Remember, it was religion that convicted Jesus Christ in a kangaroo court and eventually crucified Him.  So King Jesus went to the outcast and to the sinners of different ethnic backgrounds and preached the coming of His Heavenly Kingdom. Sadly, because of social pressure, many Christians emphasize their ethnicity in the world, when we are called to emphasize Christ our King in the world – however we do so out of our ethnicity. We stray away from our King’s marching orders, to go and make disciples of “all nations” (Matthew 28:19), when we try to conform Christ to our culture instead of conforming our culture to Christ, and we are called to do so as a witness in this racist world.

Paul, who was the apostles to the ethnic nations, explained that this was a “mystery,” which was hid in generations past, that the believing Gentiles would have a full inheritance with the believing Jews by faith in Christ the King, “the hope of glory” (Ephesians 3:6; Colossians 1:26,27).  This goes right along with John’s heavenly vision of the Kingdom.  “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9,10).

Obviously, God hates racism, but God loves “ethnic” diversity, and God showed His electing love by choosing us, creating us, calling us, justifying us, and by glorifying us – individually (Romans 8:30).

David C. Hale, pastor

Email:  insights@gmx.com