Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Jesus' Purpose for Coming


We often think of the purpose of Christ's coming to be his death for the sins of the world which is the means of our salvation and eternal life in heaven. Of course that is the work He came to do, but it wasn't the only work. Don't believe me? John 6: 38-40 tells us why Jesus came:
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

As you can see, his purpose for coming was two-fold. The part about our everlasting life is in there, however first Jesus purposed not to lose any of what God had given him. More careful study shows that He was talking about the disciples God had given him. Jesus' ministry caused many to believe on Him, but his disciples were His main concern. In John chapter 17, Jesus prays to His Father regarding this work. In verse 4 of that chapter, He states, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." This was before the cross (on which He made His final "It is finished" statement), therefore the work He meant was the discipling of the 12 men from various backgrounds with varied talents.

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You can see where I'm going with this....our discipling of our children and getting them to Heaven. And, I can hear your questions--the same ones I had when I first thought of this. "How could Jesus be finished...they weren't in Heaven yet? And what about Judas? Did Jesus fail with him? But how could Jesus fail at something?" I can't answer all of those questions, but it seems that Jesus simply knew that He had done His job. He had taught the disciples and loved them. He gave of His life for them years before He gave it ultimately on the cross. Remember all the times He had to "rescue" them? Especially the time He had to go to them in the middle of the night and calm the storm. (Think of that next time you're up all night with a child having a bad dream!)
 The tough part for me and probably some of you mothers to realize is that we can only do our job and allow the Spirit to work from there. The even tougher part is to realize that we have done our job not perfectly as Christ did, but very imperfectly. Can God redeem our mistakes? I sure hope so!

More on this subject coming on Thursday

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