by David Brenneman
"For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son; in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Colossians 1:13 NASB
We indeed are in the midst of a kingdom. One kingdom. Not many as the world may think concerning the idea of nations and countries, peoples, even genders.
One in darkness. In John 1 NASB "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of me. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
That's something to consider when you look at history. From Adam and Eve onward, Satan has tried again and again, to create a one-world government. One government that worships him. He wants everything that belongs to God. He wants the worship, the adoration, the devotion, the loyalty, everything. Yet it's in darkness. Satan's truth is darkness.
When people come to Christ the Scriptures say we are a new creation. We read here that Jesus transferrs our citizenship from the darkness to His Kingdom of light, which is in Heaven. Light is a revealer of mysteries, of everything. It's impartial when it's pure and unhindered. Optical illusions do not exist with God. Truth exists.
When we are becoming more like Christ, we will have to go through many Spiritual surgeries after doing so. It's not an instant thing for most people to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Some, however, it is. They pass from this world right into the presence of Jesus. Some, like the thief on the cross had a short period of suffering in the body before finding themselves exactly where Jesus promised.
War is never pretty. War is never glamorous as the movies may make it out to be. War isn't no where near as clean and tidy as a video game.
There's a war going on in this world where the god of this world...small 'g' is against the God of the Universe.
But why prolong it? Why go on for centuries instead of just bringing about the events of Revelation after they were written over 2,000 years ago?
You.
You and billions like you.
There are people yet to be born who would indeed come to Christ for salvation. Had Christ Jesus come before it was time, billions would not have the opportunity to come to Him for salvation. Billions more wouldn't be rejecting Him.
We see it all the time in movies and television, streaming video's, theater, etc. of the drama of being caught red-handed. The created shock and horror of truth revealed in the courtroom or crime scene. Before we come to Christ, our life is a crime scene. We just don't want it identified as such. We don't think we have done anything wrong against ourselves or against God. Yet we have.
Jesus, everywhere He went, shown light into every person's life. Truth was revealed in every single person that He touched. I think of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. When Jesus approached, the darkness parted. It couldn't exist where the Light, Jesus, was. Truth was revealed in everyone.
My reading of John 3, the interactions with Nicodemous, lead me to believe we catch up to them in the midst of either an immediate conversation or of them picking up a conversation that they have had before. The more time Nicodemous spent with Jesus the more his life was impacted by the light of Christ. Nicodemous would go on to be one of a very few Jewish Leaders who would come to believe in Christ before the crucifixion. He would go with Joseph to get the body of Jesus after He was crucified to prepare it for burial. The light of Christ revealed his heart and transformed him.
In our lives we are to live lives that shine the light of Christ. We have no light in and of ourselves to shine. When our citizenship is transferred, when we are sealed by the Spirit of God, the light of Christ shines from within us. Jesus said if the world hated Him, and it does, it would hate us as well.
Jesus showed everyone the truth. He says of Himself that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He would be and is the only way to enter into Heaven. Good works, a nice job done, being untroublesome to the world, would never get you into Heaven. Being nice all the time, not hurting even a fly, would not get you into Heaven. Nothing you can or would do would get you into Heaven. Only through what Jesus did on the cross, dying in your place, believing in Him for that, makes Him the Way. It's, by definition, the only approved by the Father God method of entry into Heaven. The buck stops there. God the Father is the only one to approve what method qualifies for salvation and He's said it's only through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus said He's the Truth. He is the Light. As said earlier of light, it's an unhindered revealer of truth. It's said that every mirror you buy is actually a used mirror. A mirror reflects light without partiality. It shows exactly what the light reflected reveals. Beauty or ugliness is a matter of opinion...the Light of Christ is no opinion. That light reveals the spirit, the soul, of a person. The true self. One should never look at the outward appearance. Physical appearance is deceptive.
I've known some extremely beautiful people 'trapped' as it were, in a body that doesn't function well. As the Bible says clearly...God knows the heart.
He is the Life. We only think, while still here in this kingdom of darkness, that we can truly live life. That we can create our own little slice of heaven here until we enjoy the real thing in Heaven. The word retirement doesn't exist in the Bible. As Paul wrote...we are to run the race until our race is run. Giving it our all for Jesus. We cannot sit on the sidelines.
As I read someone write the other day...Satan can't separate us from God...but he can try to make us forget about God. To try to make us think we got life. That we can live it in our own strength, our own will. He knows he cannot separate us from the love of God. The Bible says so and he's got to abide by what the Bible says and try as he may, he's never gotten even the smallest of things from the Bible to not be true.
Success in this world is a fleeting thing. It's here today and gone tomorrow. We take none of it with us to Heaven should we already be a Believer in Christ Jesus for our salvation. Those in Hell didn't take it with them there either.
Contrary to what fables have been said...Satan't not in Hell, has never been there. Isn't some guy with red skin and horns. Satan knows exactly what Hell is and absolutely doesn't want to be there. He lost a great many demons, also known as fallen angels, to the judgement that Hell is. But people have come back from Hell. Actually the only real reported 'coming back' was Samuel to King Saul. Even the person doing it was shocked and stunned because of where he came from. Demons will make people believe that this person or that person came back from the dead. They can mimic every type and kind of person. Once in Hell people stay in Hell. It's a judgement of God that nobody can revoke.
You don't ever want to think that you can make it there either. That it's some form of paradise. Jesus spoke the truth of what is to be found in Hell. The raw truth of people's lives is seen in Hell. They are all shown that the fell short of God's requirement for Heaven. They are all there because they said no to Jesus's gift of salvation that was freely offered to them. From the greatest, smartest this world considered to be...they are in Hell if they said no to salvation in Christ Jesus.
What about choice? Right here, right now, people have a choice. That's more revealed truth. While anyone still has the gift of the breath of life, they have a choice before them to either come to Christ to be saved or choose Hell.
My Dear Reader, if you haven't come to Christ yet, you are indeed still walking around in darkness. You're going about your day with the truth of what life really is hidden from you. Ignorance may indeed be bliss but when the veil is torn apart we see the reality. Once we see the truth we cannot unsee it. Satan will try to hide it over and over again.
For those who are reading this who are in Christ Jesus...be the light you were meant to be. We each have a calling and purpose in Christ that is irrevocable. We have been given gifts from the Spirit that He intended us to be using for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, not for us to be sitting on. We who are in Christ are now of the Kingdom of God. We're just visitors with a mission. A job to do in Christ. Living a transformed life, showing others how to have their's transformed as well.
You have no idea if you'll be alive in the next few seconds, minutes, hours, days or years. You indeed, as I have written of a former co-worker's husband, may get up from reading this and fall dead to the floor. All he did was get up for another cup of coffee. His heart stopped beating and that was it.
This applies to both Believers and those who haven't yet come to Christ for salvation. Our breath of life is a gift from God. Each breath gives way to opportunity to not have to go to Hell. Each breath gives way to opportunity to live for the One who saved us.
Jesus hasn't come yet but will do so someday. No man knows the day nor the hour but we are promised that it WILL happen.
My belief is that the global earthquake that will happen when He does come is the explosion of joy in Heaven by those who are there: humans and angels.
They will know exactly why He got up from His Throne. They will know that very shortly the last 1007 years of mankind will be taking place before everyone, those who Believe and those who rejected Jesus will step into Eternity. Time will no longer exist as we know it.
Think on where you are today. Think on what you are doing with your life. Does Jesus have any part of it? Do you fill your days with nothing but what you want when you want it how you want it?
Jesus is truth. Not truth revealed. There's nothing in Him that needs to be exposed for He IS Truth. We have lives that need exposed in order to become more like Jesus. We have the need to have sin and it's consequences removed, Jesus does not. We may not escape the consequences of sin physically but we can be forgiven by Christ Spritually. A criminal who comes to Christ may still have to serve time for what they did. Salvation isn't a way to get out of the consequences of your actions. Salvation makes us right before God. It imparts the Holiness of Jesus to us who believe. It cancels the debt of sin.
Think about why you are driving yourself to do what you are doing. As the Bible also says: "What does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world yet forfeit's his soul? What can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" Everything we have is forfeit when we die. No method of dying comes with a U-Haul.
Darkness is also evil. In the days of Noah the only point of righteous light on the whole planet was Noah. Everyone was in darkness, everyone was doing evil continually. Consider it also that Jesus said that people in that evil world were marrying and being given in marriage. To them life looked normal...yet God says they were doing evil continually. Look around the world. Evil is happening continually. The imaginations of most lean towards evil in Hollywood and in movie/film/video production. Branded as 'entertainment' it is not. It's sewing seeds of doubt of distraction from the righteous life that Christ desires.
As someone else has said "garbage in, garbage out" ....also that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
Evil people will keep doing the same evil things hoping for a different result. Evil poured into something only begets evil coming out of it.
We need a life in Christ to show us the way to go....because He IS the Way.
We need a life in Christ to show us the truth of life...because He IS the Truth.
We need a life in Christ to show us what life is...because He IS the Life.
We need a life in Christ if we're ever to become who we were meant to be in this life.
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