Author: Burje Duro

This is Part four and the last article of the series ‘Jesus Christ: From Start to Finish’. Click here to read Part One.

It all ends with Jesus Christ

When the sun sets on us one last time in this life, Jesus will hold our hands to lead us across the River Jordan. Into the Promised Land we will go. There the sun will never set because there is no sun. In fact, there will be no need for either the light of the sun or for an indicator of time. Jesus Himself will be our glorious Light for all eternity and in Him, we will rejoice and be filled with exceeding gladness. If we set our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith, then we will most definitely make it! However, if we take our eyes off of Jesus, we will most definitely sink (Matt. 14:30).

There is a glorious city, whose maker and builder is God (Heb. 11:10). That city will make all the celebrated cities of this world look like devastated slums. It is a city with streets of gold and walls of Jasper, the foundations are precious stones and the gates are made of pearls. It is a city where peace prevails and God’s Will is established. There are no tears, or fears in that city. There will be no crying or dying. Eternal bliss will be the order of the day and we will all bask in the Eternal Love of our Savior (Rev. 21:3-7, Rev. 21:22-27). We will all praise and worship our God and King forever (Rev. 15:2-3, Rev. 19:5-7).

Home At Last

The New Jerusalem is no human feat, but God’s own work. The only reasons that we will be ready to inhabit this amazing city when the time comes will be because of the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and His continual work in our lives. He is ever bringing us closer to perfection — if we allow Him to work, of course. All we have to do is to lay our hopes in His competent hands and he will take care of the rest. Sin could not conquer Him, Death could not hold Him, and the grave could not stop Him. No one will ever take us out of His hands (John 10:28-30)!

Jesus assures us of tribulations in this world — but He also assures us that He has overcome it all (John 16:33). Therefore relax, and may the peace of Christ dwell richly in your hearts (John 14:27, Phil. 4:4-7). Fight the good fight and run the race to the end and you will receive a reward from the Lord, the righteous Judge. (2 Tim. 4:8).

Let Us Persevere

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Heaven is for real, and we need to be expectantly ready to go there when and wherever the call to come home is sounded. If Jesus Christ were to come with His Heavenly Host to take us while we are still alive, we should be ready. This is one bus we do not want to miss! (Matt. 24:30, 2 Thess. 4:13-18, Rev. 1:7).

Therefore let us fix our eyes on Jesus and look towards Him steadfastly. Let us follow hard after Him and cling onto Him with an unfaltering tenacity. Like Asaph let us say, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, That I may declare all Your works.” (Ps. 73:25-28)

May the Good Lord keep us all until we get home!

I hope you have learned something from these articles. Please write a line or two in the comment section about one promise or hope you have learned from God’s Word that has helped you to stay your course in your journey to Heaven. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to get more messages like this in your inbox!

Click on the proper title if you would like to read Part One, Part Two or Part Three.

Part Three (Click here to read Part One or here to read Part Two)

The Journey with Jesus Christ

Jesus is the Good Shepherd (Ps. 23, John 10:11-12). Every single step that we take, we take with Jesus. He has already completed the journey and He knows how to lead us (Isa. 40:11, Heb. 4:14).

As we all know, journeying through life is perilous and difficult due to the triple threat of the world, satan and the flesh. The devil uses every resource available to make it difficult to hear God’s voice by making the world a busy world. For this reason, looking to Jesus becomes increasingly difficult because there is so much that is vying for our attention: friends, family, TV programming, schooling, society, magazines, the internet, social media, news, radio, billboards, etc… In the end, all these can be used by the devil to try to take our eyes off of Jesus Christ.

Decision making is becoming increasingly burdensome and, sometimes, unbearable. On top of that, If we cast Jesus Christ, who is our anchor, off and allow ourselves to drift into the wild sea of uncertainty, we will truly regret it in the end. Despite all this, Jesus said that we will have trouble in this world, but that we should not be alarmed because He has overcome it (John 16:33). Needless to say, He did not tell us that in order for us to throw common sense and prudence out the window. Staying close to the one who has overcome this world will enable us to overcome this world too.

We Must Persevere to the End

There will come many a time when we falter in our walk and the raging winds of this world come howling our way and try to sweep us back into the darkness we escaped from. In times like these, we should remember that Christ has us in His hands (John 10:27-30) and that God has engraved us upon the palm of His hand (Isa. 49:16). Nothing can snatch us from His capable and wise hands. Even though our attempts will at best be feeble, we still need to persevere till the end and God will do the rest (Rom. 5:3-4, Rom. 12:12, 1 Cor. 10:13). We should always remember that obeying the words of Jesus Christ is like building our house upon the rock. The winds will come and the rain will fall, but our house will remain sure! (Matt. 7:24-27)

What is it you are struggling against today? The world? Jesus has overcome it. Sin? Jesus has overcome that too! (Heb. 2:18, Heb. 4:15) The flesh? Jesus demonstrated, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, complete dominion over His flesh and triumphed over it until the end (Luke. 4:1-13, Heb. 5:7-10). Brothers and Sisters, Be encouraged!

The Comfort of Christ’s Companionship

Jesus Himself has said that He will be with us until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). He will never leave us or forsake us (Deut. 31:6) so we can confidently say “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psa. 118:6,7). Jesus Christ will be with us every step of the way!

The journey we are undertaking is one of obedience. God wants obedient children. God wants children who will obey Him out of deep love for Him and unfaltering trust in Him. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:16-17)?  God asked them to obey. Do you remember the Children of Israel as they came out of Egypt? God asked them to obey and promised blessings if they did (Ex. 19:5, Ex. 20:6). What did Jesus tell His disciples? If you love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15-16, John 15:10). How do we obey? We live according to God’s Holy Word. We should live our lives according to His Laws and Statues. That’s how we “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16, 25)!

I pray that you have been blessed by this series. Please let me know how walking with Christ has helped you to overcome this world by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Be Blessed!

This is Part three of the series ‘Jesus Christ: From Start to Finish. Click here to read Part One or here to read Part Two.

Part Two (Click here to read part one)

Last week we began studying how to journey through this world towards Heaven. Thus, today we will see the first point we must consider in our pilgrimage.

It all begins with Jesus Christ

The Holy Spirit brought us to the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ through his convictions of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. There we beheld Him bleeding and bruised, ridiculed and forsaken, humiliated and crushed as a punishment for our sins. Upon understanding this we despairingly cried out to God, “What must I do to be saved”? The Holy Spirit replied, “Believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ and be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16) After that, we “confessed that Christ Jesus is the Son of God and believed in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead” (John 6:69; Acts 8:37; Rom 10:9-10) and we were saved.

As a result of this, we stopped being children of wrath and became Children of God. At the same instance, we became Citizens of Heaven instead of candidates for hell. Our faith in the truth that ‘Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world’ (John 1:29) was how it all started. At once God saved us and we became new creations in Christ Jesus! (2 Cor 5:7) God’s Holy Spirit stamped us with God’s seal. Through prayer and the reading and studying of God’s word, and by the gentle but sure guidance of the Holy Spirit, we began to grow.

The Simple Plan of Salvation

God’s desire  to save the souls of men is deep. Thus He has made the means for salvation simple to understand and easy to attain. You see, God does not want anyone to perish. God’s arms of love always extend towards us. The Creator of the universe patiently waits for lost humanity to return back to Him. In addition to all this, God is actively engaged in the salvation of man. (Isa 65:2; 2 Pet 3:9) All you have to do is believe in your heart and confess with your mouth.

Nevertheless, this simple plan of salvation has proven, often, too simple to be accepted by man. We enjoy being industrious, scientific and proud. This gift goes against all our natural instincts. We question God’s motives and wonder if He has put any hidden stipulations in the “fine print”. In some cases, we question His very existence! With respect to this, man has reduced creation to chance and happenstance instead of Divine Design. We believe that order emerged from chaos, and that life is only what it is here and now.

In other cases, we will not accept the idea of a free gift evnthough we believe in the existence of God. In our minds and hearts, we believe that we have to do something to appease an angry God. We have not fully understood that God laid His entire wrath upon Jesus Christ. He crushed Him for our iniquities and bruised Him for our transgressions. Because of this, we can come to Christ Jesus just as we are and He will gladly save us.

God is Worthy of Our Trust

Let us all remember this when we falter in our faith, and feel unworthy of His Love. We had nothing to do with our salvation. We went to Christ and confessed our sins and that was it. Therefore let us continually go to Christ for a fresh visitation through His Holy Spirit when our decisions bog us down in the mire of our sins. (Matt 11:28-30) Let us go to Him for strength and guidance. He is trustworthy and capable. He will guide us in the way He chooses. (Ps 25:12; Ps 48:14)

Next week, we will continue with part three of the article. Click here to read part one.

Part One

“…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

It all starts with Jesus

Jesus is the glorious beginning of everything. In Him we live and move and have our being. All things were created for Him and by Him. It is by having a close relationship with Jesus that the purpose and direction of our life can be found. Without Him we are nothing. Our lives will never be ‘complete’ in the truest sense of the word apart from His presence in our lives. When we first accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and surrendered our lives over to His competent care, we embarked on a journey that would have its destination in His glorious Kingdom of Light. Journeying with Jesus is the best journey you can ever take!

As all creation has started with Jesus, all history will come to its Grand Finale in Christ Jesus. Our birth, and even more so, conception, was through Christ Jesus. Jesus is the one who planted the seed of the life of faith in our hearts. It was when we saw Him, by faith, crucified on that horrendous cross that we were born again. We were justified when we spoke the words of faith that Jesus is Lord, the Lamb of God slain for our sins and saved when we believed in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead (Rom 10:9-10; John 1:12,29). It is His love, protection, guidance and nurturing that enables us to grow and mature as Christians. As the Good shepherd, He guides us by still waters to lie down in green pastures. But like sheep we stray and go our own way, and do our own thing.

The Power of Decisions

When our own decisions become the undoing of us, we scurry back to the Good Shepherd’s protection. When we cry out in anguish and despair because our decisions have put us into a position of fear in which we have become too petrified to run back to Christ, the Good Shepherd will find us and carry us back to the flock of His pasture. Sometimes God will guide us back to green pastures with a heavy hand by using the rod in His hand. At other times He will softly whisper to us and gently guide us with the staff in His hand. (Ps. 23) In either case, we can always be certain of the fact that God’s love is never-failing and that He will always deal with us out of the abundance of His love.

So how shall we go about our journey towards Heaven? How shall we live our lives here on Earth? As we have all figured out, our pilgrimage, however short it may be, is toilsome and filled with many trials. We can at least keep three facts in mind as we live daily for the glory of Christ. Come back again next week and let’s hear God’s voice together! However, if you can’t wait till next week, here’s a sneak peek: Jesus in the beginning, Jesus in the Middle and Jesus in the end! Amen!

Click Here to read Part Two