Hallelujah! Today is Easter – Resurrection Day!
I read this Oscar Leske Facebook post a few days on the
group Christians and Jews United for the
existence of Israel (Closed Group). It is some good preaching
from a guy who wants you to know he is not a Pastor or ordained Minister.
JRH 4/21/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
*********************
JESUS: THE GREATEST
LOVE WORTH FINDING
Posted by Oscar
Leske
April 18 at 10:42 AM
Facebook Closed Group
- Christian
and Jews United for the existence of
Israel
WHO IS JESUS?
A more lonely humble beginning is impossible to imagine. It was an unpretentious stage entrance of the Son of Man, the Son of God. God in human form presented upon earth's stage. The infant cry of the newborn baby came clearly and for the very first time deity was articulated directly in sounds expressed through a human body. God has come and He is with His people; He is Immanuel, which is translated, "God with us." (Matt.1:23)
There were no newspapers that heralded the coming of Christ.
There was no announcement that the Redeemer had come. There was no one who was
publicly saying, "This is the Savior of the world." Unknown to the
major populace of that day; in Bethlehem, the least among the cities, was born
the Savior. What a humble entrance and when I read that story I wonder at it.
Only God could have written such a script. You and I would never have thought
to draft such a story. Here deity invades humanity. Here eternity invades time.
Here royalty invades poverty. Just imagine the awe and wonder of this humble
entrance of Christ into the world. The Lord of glory laying upon straw, the
Creator in a cradle, the Savior in a stall. The Sovereign of history welcomed
by the shepherds of the hillside! God sent His Christmas gift to this earth
nearly 2,000 years ago. It was the gift of Himself – deity wrapped in humanity.
What a story, what profound truth is wrapped up in this thought; that God came
here to be one of us. Immanuel, God with us.
GOD MANIFESTED IN THE
FLESH
When God chose to reveal Himself, He did so through a human
body. The hand that touched the leper had dirt under its nails and the tears He
wept came from a heart as broken as yours or mine will ever be. We have a God
who has condescended to come and live in the midst of our suffering and pain
and to help us face it and conquer it. Because God is with us, we have the
confidence to face the challenges of life. Whatever problems may come our way,
God is with us. There is no challenge that will ever come to any child of God
that will be bigger than the ability of God to handle it. Jesus came into the
world to be the Savior of lost mankind. I'd love for you to understand that
this unique person is the only hope of lost mankind.
So many people that I know, who take a stab at religion,
have a view of God as someone distant and unapproachable, someone who cannot be
reached or who cares little about the mundane things that happen on this earth.
But the God of the Bible is Immanuel, God with us; God coming down to be one of
us. Literally; God walking around in the body and Person of Jesus Christ! The
deity of Jesus Christ is an undeniable truth from the Bible. He is God in man.
He is the Son of God and He is God, the Son. It is the truth that we will
probably never really comprehend fully with our finite minds.
The reason Christ Jesus came into the world was not to
establish a religion, but to give LIFE. In the Gospel of John the word
"life" occurs 44 times, and the word religion not once. Jesus Himself
tells us why He came. He said in John 10:10, "I have come that they may
have LIFE....."
The obvious question is "What kind of person needs
life?" From God's point of view, the problem of man is not just that he is
a sinner in need of forgiveness; his greater problem is that he is DEAD and in
need of LIFE. We are born into this world in the image of Adam – dead
spiritually. And dead men don't need help; they need life. Salvation is the
process of passing from "death" to "life." It is not just
something Christ did for you; it is Christ Jesus Himself living in you. Christ
laid down His life for us so that He could give His life to us. We receive life
the moment we accept Him as our Savior.
GOD REACHING DOWN TO
MAN
Here we have God reaching down to man because man could not
reach out to God and in His hand was salvation. That's why the writer of the
book of Acts says it this way,
"Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under
heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12)." That's the
only name; salvation comes by no other way but through Jesus. [Blog Editor:
Bold text my emphasis.] No church, no priest, no religion, and none of your
good deeds will save you; only Jesus. He said, "I am the way, the truth,
and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known
Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have
seen Him (Jn.14:6,7)." He is the ONLY way to heaven. Jesus said,
"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that
leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the
gate and difficult is the way which leads to LIFE, and there are few who find
it (Matt.7:13,14)."
Do you want to get to heaven? Then you have to go through
the name of Jesus. It's exclusive! You may say, "Well, aren't there many
ways to heaven?" No! There are a lot of ideas about how to get to heaven
but there is only "one way." Some folks may say to me, "Hey
Oscar, that's awfully narrow-minded or that sounds sort of bigoted to me."
You know, I don't like to be called narrow minded nor do I like to have people
tell me I'm narrow minded, but I'd like to be just as narrow minded as the Word
of God is. Because you see the Bible says that every person will walk either
one of two paths; a narrow way leading to LIFE, or the wide path leading to
DESTRUCTION (Matt.7:13).
Those that get admitted to heaven are going to have to pass
through the narrow gate – that of faith, discipline and endurance. It's an
illustration to us. What Jesus is saying to us is that the way to heaven is
narrow and few find it. Jesus also said there is a broad way that leads to
destruction. An example of this is religion, which is a broad way but it isn't
going to get you to heaven. The people that are going to go to heaven are going
to go on God's condition and terms; not ours. There is only one way in which a
person is going to go into the presence of the God of this universe and that is
through faith in what His Son came to this earth to accomplish. Nobody will be going to heaven because of
what they have done – only because of what Christ Jesus has done. [Blog Editor bold
text emphasis] "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is no one
who does good, no, not one; for all of us have sinned and all of us have fallen
short of the glory of God (Rom.3:10,23)." That includes you and me. And so
the only reason, the only way that we're going to go into the presence of God
is when we have accepted God's provision for us in His Son, Christ Jesus.
"There is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby you must be
saved."
Now in the world in which we live, the gate is wide and
broad – the life of self-indulgence and pleasure. Then you have all the various
religions and those religious but lost who go to church for social reasons, but
who don't know the Lord from Adam and still call themselves Christians
(counterfeit Christians). There are people who have been going to church most
of their lives and have never heard the gospel message. In a lot of the
churches today, the Gospel is never proclaimed and so the gate is wide and
broad and is the way that leads to destruction.
But there is only one way to get into the presence of God
and that is accepting what God has said about you and me: that we're sinners
and that we're dead. This has a consequence to it; it's called "spiritual
death" and that's what you are saved from. You're not saved from sins
(Jesus has taken away all the sins of the world) but you're saved from the
consequence of sin which is (spiritual) death or separation from God and the
gift of God is eternal life in His Son.
Only a living saved being (alive spiritually) is going to go
into the presence of a living God. We were all born dead spiritually and the
only way we're going to go into the presence of the living God is to be made
alive spiritually and the only source of LIFE for us is the life of the
resurrected Christ Jesus. He said, "I am the resurrection and the LIFE. He
who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live (Jn.11:25)" Jesus is
telling us here that ONLY He has the power of "resurrection" and of
"life" in His hands. That's the narrow way.
If we never turned to Him by faith we remain dead. Dead
spiritually and God is Spirit and so we can't have a relationship with God if
we don't have the spirit in us because God is not flesh and bones. God is
Spirit and so we must have the Holy Spirit to interact with God. It says in
John 4:24, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in
spirit and truth." And so we as believers who have the indwelling Spirit
of God in us can worship God in spirit and truth.
There is only one God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
who became a man and dwelt among us as the only begotten Son of the Father! It
is not the case of being narrow minded. It's the case that He is the only One
whose blood was of such value that it could take away the sins of the world and
through His resurrected life He can offer you “life” eternal. Your religion
can't give you "life." Your church can't give you "life."
Your priest or Pope can't give you "life." The only One is God,
Christ Jesus, who has a "life" to give. Christ Jesus was raised from
the dead, and His resurrection is the restoration of LIFE!
Buddha didn't come back from the grave. Muhammad didn't come
back from the grave. None of the Popes came back from the grave. The New Age
Gurus didn't come back from the grave. None of these came back from the dead.
Only Christ Jesus came back from the dead and was witnessed by the apostles and
some 500 more witnesses (1Cor.15:4-6). Only Christ Jesus was resurrected from
the grave and is alive and now sits at the right hand of God, the Father (Acts
2:33). Only Christ Jesus has a "life" to give and the moment you put
your faith in Him, the Spirit of God comes to reside in you and you are made
alive, spiritually. From that moment on, you have life eternal and you have a
personal relationship with God never to be separated from Him again for all
eternity. Isn't that great news? (Read Romans 8: 9-11)
There is only one way by which you can enter into that
relationship with Him and it's called by faith. It's not through works; creeds,
sacraments, confession booths, priests or anything or anyone else. You're not
going to become a child of God sitting in church any more than you become a
chicken sitting in a hen house or a car sitting in the garage. You're going to
become a child of God when there comes a point in your life when you say I've
had it and turn in faith to Christ Jesus. You can't become a child of God on
your own merits, or through any works that you do.
If you were to stand up before God and He said to you,
"What have you done to deserve to be in My heaven?" How would you
answer Him? What would you say? "Oh, well, I'm a good person." No
you're not! There is only one person who is good and that is God and you're not
God (Mk.10:18). So do you have any other excuses? You're not going to be judged
by someone else or by any of your peers as to whether you're going to heaven or
not. You're not going to be judged by any man. There is only One who will judge
you and that's Jesus. He really knows where your heart is at and Jesus knows
whether or not you're faking it or whether or not you have been truly converted
through putting your faith in Him. So, do you still want to play church or do
you want to get a LIFE that only He is able to give you? Ask yourself, "Am
I in Christ or am I in a religion?" Don't fool yourself! God knows every
little thing about you. You can fool others around you, but you can't fool God.
I have one other question for you: "Why in the world would you want to
self-destruct, to rationalize your life away and to be separated from God for
all eternity by rejecting His Son, Christ Jesus?"
This is why it is so
critical for you to know that the barrier between God and sinful man has now
been taken away at Calvary’s cross, and a bridge has been built between the two
through the person of Jesus Christ (reconciliation). The reason that God has
removed the sin barrier is so that whosoever will come to Christ by faith can
be made alive in Him. That is why the ONLY thing that will ever condemn a man to
hell is simply his refusal to accept LIFE. [Blog Editor bold text emphasis.]
Who did Jesus claim to be?
Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the
clearest, most specific picture of God revealing Himself to us. Throughout the
major world religions you'll find that Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and Moses
all identified themselves as teachers or prophets. None of them ever claim to
be equal to God. Surprisingly, only Jesus did. That is what sets Jesus apart
from all the others. He said God exists and you're looking at Him. Though He
talked about His Father in heaven, it was not from the position of separation,
but of very close union, unique to all humankind. Jesus said that anyone who
has seen Him has seen the Father, anyone who believes in Him, believes in the
Father (John 14:7-11).
He said, "I am the light of the world, he who follows
Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of LIFE (Jn.8:12)."
Our Lord here draws an analogy between the sun as the physical light of the
world and Himself as the spiritual light of the world. He claimed attributes
belonging only to God: to be able to forgive people of their sins, freedom from
habits of sin, give people a more abundant life and give them eternal life in
heaven. Unlike other teachers who focused people on their words, Jesus pointed
to Himself. He did not say, "Follow my words and you will find
truth." He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes
to the Father but through Me." The truth is not in the abstract but in the
Person of Christ Jesus. He is God in the flesh and He created you and me along
with everything else on earth and He knows it all (John 1:3).
There are so many references in regards to who Jesus claimed
to be, that I am only going to quote eight.
1. John 10:30, "I and the Father are one."
2. John 8:58, Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, before
Abraham was, I Am."
3. John 5:43, "I have come in My Father's name
............."
4. John 6:38, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own
will, but the will of Him who sent Me."
5. John 6:51, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven
........."
6. John 16:28, "I came forth from the Father and have come into
the world."
7. John 7:29, "But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent
Me."
8. John 17:21, "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in
Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe
that You sent Me. [Blog Editor bold text emphasis.]
Your future and eternity hinge on how you respond to Christ.
As Jesus declared, "If you do not believe that I am the One I claim to be,
you will indeed die in your sins (John 8:24)."
WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE
CLAIM HIM TO BE?
The first chapter of the book of John nails down Jesus' deity.
1. John 1:1-5. In the beginning the Word (Jesus) already existed.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with
God. God created everything through Him and nothing was created except through
Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought
light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never
extinguish it.
2. John 1:10-13. He came into the very world He created, but the
world didn't recognize Him. He came to His own people, and even they rejected
Him. But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become
children of God. They are re-born not from a physical birth resulting from
human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God (spiritual re-birth).
3. John 1:14. And the Word became flesh (human) and made His home
among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His
glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.
WHAT PROOF DID JESUS
GIVE FOR CLAIMING TO BE DIVINE?
He did what no other person can do. Jesus performed
miracles. He healed people; the sick, the blind, the crippled, the deaf, and
raised people from the dead. He had power over objects such as creating food
out of thin air, enough to feed crowds of several thousand people. He performed
miracles over nature such as walking on top of a lake, changing water into
wine, paying the temple tax by catching a fish with a coin in its mouth,
restoring a severed ear, commanding a raging storm to stop for some friends. People
everywhere followed Jesus, because He constantly met their needs, doing the
miraculous. He said if you do not want to believe what I'm telling you, you
should at least believe in Me based on the miracles you're seeing.
In closing, I want to read to you a remarkable prophecy that
the prophet Isaiah foretold about Jesus some 700 years before His birth. I
think this prophecy describing the coming Messiah prophesied in Isaiah 9:6 best
describes who Jesus is. Here is that familiar yet extraordinary verse of
promise:
"For a Child will be born to
us, a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders;
and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father,
Prince of Peace."
Notice how accurate this prophecy is. Two different
expressions are used. It says, "a Child will be born," but it also
says; "a Son will be given." You see, Jesus did not come into
existence at the time of His human birth; He's eternal. He's the eternal Son of
God. He was not born as the Son of God. He was given as the Son of God. But, in
human terms, He was born as a child. Do you see how accurate that is?
The prophet Isaiah also said that God would give us a sign: "Behold,
the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel."
Immanuel means "God with us." What a wonder! To think that God the
Son would leave the splendor and glory of heaven and take on human flesh! That
He would walk among us and show us the nature and character of the Father! That
He would lay His life down for us; then through His resurrection conquered
death on our behalf and gives us "life" everlasting!
Always remember this and never forget it: God created us and
loved us so much and wanted a relationship with us, "That He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life (Jn.3:16)." [Blog Editor bold
text emphasis.]
The Bible is all about history. HIS.. STORY. Jesus, God the
Son:
God with us
God in the flesh
God who came down from heaven and dwelt among us
God who made the world
God who created us
God who offers us "life" everlasting
JESUS: THE GREATEST
LOVE WORTH FINDING
Oscar Leske
__________________
Who am I? My name is Oscar
Leske, I was born in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. After graduating
from high school in Drumheller, Alberta in 1965, I moved to British Columbia
and later on in 1969 moved to the West Coast, to Vancouver, BC. After 31 years
of marketing and sales I retired in 2002.
I want to begin by telling you
that I’m not a pastor, preacher or minister. In fact, I’m not even a religious
person, as far as religion goes, but I do love Jesus for what He’s accomplished
for me on Calvary’s cross in offering me hope, salvation, reconciliation, and
life eternal. It is a personal relationship with God, the Father, through His
only begotten Son, Christ Jesus. Having a relationship with God has nothing to
do with religion and it has everything to do with Jesus and what He’s done for
us and not anything of what we can do to earn righteousness – we can only cling
to His righteousness. The difference between relationship and religion is the
same as the difference between done versus do. Let me explain: God
did not come to earth to start a religion. He did not create us to start a
religious following. As God, He needs nothing. He did not create us to be His
servants as God has all the angels in heaven to look after and administer to
all of His needs. The plain truth is that God doesn’t need us! So why did
He create us? What was His purpose for creating you and me?
Scripture clearly tells us that
God created man for His pleasure, for His fellowship, so that we can have an
intimate relationship with God – it’s called love. God created you and
loves you so much that He wants you to get to know Him and spend eternity with
Him in fellowship. … READ THE REST
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