Often we have certain thoughts and doubts concerning our faith which we wonder about, but cast aside and never bother to actually look into them, as we think they are unreligious or unholy and satanic thoughts. We guess most Christians have asked themselves these questions at least once in their lives. “Why should I follow Jesus? What is so different about Him? What is the purpose of acknowledging Him as the one true God? What sets Him apart? Why or on what basis can I tell that He is the true living God?” Often when we preach Jesus, we preach Him for the miracles He can do, the deliverance that comes from Him, the problems He has the capacity to solve and the peace He can offer by meeting all our desires. Don’t other pagan gods do it as well? Don’t we see around us sorcerers, magicians and other idols performing miracles and promising deliverance to people? We may say that as Christians we talk to Jesus and have a personal relationship with Him. Also pagans claim they have a personal relationship with their gods. So, what is different about Jesus? Why should He be preached as the one and only savior?
1. He is the eternal life and love
Jesus did not come to bring a religion by ordaining some sacraments, laws or codes of conduct. The Jews already had all of it. In fact, Jesus was against religious attitude. He came only for one purpose and that was ‘LOVE’. This was His only principle. He came to give His life and love to us, irrespective of our deserving status, worth and acceptance of it. The key area where most of us have fallen away is, we carried religion as a practice and tradition into Christianity and assumed that this is the life that Jesus came to give us in order to enter paradise. We mixed Christian life and religion together.
Religion is nothing but trying to perform certain duties as a Christian in expectation of some benefits. Many of us convince ourselves that we do not have any expectation when we are keeping up our good conduct. It could be praying, fasting, Bible reading, tithing, doing social work, serving in a ministry, sacrificing, humbling ourselves, performing duties in family with all patience etc. Though we say that we do all this without expecting any returns, we do it with an ulterior motive to at least go to heaven. We use the Bible as our reference and misquote it without understanding the truth, saying, “Even if we give only a cup of cold water to a prophet or servant of God, assuredly, we shall by no means lose our reward.” There is always a certain degree of selfishness involved in all our good Christian behavior and works. This is not love. These are merely calculated moves to achieve our means. Jesus did not come to be manipulated. He did not suffer and die so He can be foolishly subjected to our calculations and manipulations. He came to restore us back to Him so that we can be united with Him as He is with the Father.
This restoration of us to God through His life is true Christianity. His life living in us is our only way to restoration and salvation. When His life has to be united with our life, it involves intimacy and a relationship. A union cannot come to pass between two people, unless there is a relationship, specifically a deeply intimate one. There is a natural, unspoken understanding, love and communication in a true and genuine relationship. This is why Jesus likens the relationship between Himself and the church i.e., we with Him, to that of a husband and wife. He came to bridge the relationship gap between us and the Father. This is the purpose of the blood and the cross. Nevertheless, the devastating mistake that we all make and have been taught through generations is to ‘buy’ or establish this relationship with God through our efforts and good behavior. We are either unaware that God is real, Jesus is personal and is looking for a union with us for eternity or we are aware that we need Him, but follow the traditional religious teachings to reach Him. We are blinded to the fact that only His very life can bring us into a relationship or oneness with Him. What we need to realize is that, Christianity is all about relationship with God and Him being personal to us, which is possible only through us surrendering ourselves to Him entirely. We are unable to surrender because we associate surrender with defeat and uncertainty. Nevertheless, surrendering into God’s hands is not defeat but the first step towards inheriting His eternal life. Unless we have completely let go of ourselves and become empty in the hands of God, relationship with Him can never be fruitful. Our nature by itself wants to prove something to God, ourselves and society. We want to be of some good. We want to be worthy, valuable, willful, strong and brave. We are unaware that these very things are our ‘psyche’ and fortresses of religiousness. We are constantly pushed by the church, elders and family to attain this level of worthiness to demonstrate in front of God. Therefore, we never cease from adhering to our moral ethics and religious duties, albeit our measure of righteousness in the sight of God being just a filthy rag.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.
Since our righteousness, however excellent, can never measure up to God, Jesus came to give His life to us so that when we are united with Him, what will be exhibited in front of God will not be our filthy rag but the garment of salvation of Jesus. Unless God can see this garment of Jesus on us, He can never be appeased. His wrath will be upon us as long as we try to display our filthy rag instead of hiding in Jesus so that He and His righteousness will be displayed instead of ours. This garment of salvation is eternal life that Jesus made possible for us to relish through His death on the cross.
Adam was created by God in His image, but he still needed to endure to inherit the sonship that was offered to Him, which he never did. As we have seen so far, the enduring process of grace leads to salvation. God has given us the freedom of choice to stay in this process or leave. This process begins by His mercy, continues till the end by His grace and we are under grace if we choose it, but we also are free to leave at any point. Once we leave, we also lose His life, the tree of life like Adam. Because of the choice Adam made, sin and death entered the world through him and he never tasted God’s life. This loss of eternal life was against the very purpose of God’s creation. The world could not go on forever without inheriting the life of Jesus. No matter the atonements and sacrifices that were made as per the law, the true transformation into God’s children was not possible without the life of Jesus. For e.g. children carry the parents’ DNA and life. If they carry any DNA other than that of the parents then they are not their children biologically. There can be make-do attempts to adopt. Unless the DNA is identical, the child does not belong to the parent by flesh and blood. In the same way, we are adopted by God as His children, but it does not stop there; in addition, He also gives us His life i.e., His ‘DNA’ and very nature when redeemed. Unless we carry His life till the very end, we can never continue as His children. This is why Jesus had to come into the world to restore His life in us, through His blood that we failed at inheriting. No amount of self-effort or sacrifice will buy us this life, but only our total surrender to Him and desire for intimacy with Him will restore it back to us. This life of Jesus is the one that makes us worthy to be in His presence as His children. We lose God Himself and Christian life is meaningless if we still do not choose His life over our life and submit to it. We can never have a life apart from the life and love of Jesus.
2. We are His children
Romans 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
At this point we would like to ask a very important question. What is the purpose of our life? Why have we been created? There could be many answers: to rule the world, to have back the dominion that Adam lost, to be successful and prosperous, to do God’s work, to preach the good news to others etc. But as we have seen in the above chapters, the Kingdom of God is not of this world and God does not require any service from our hands. Then, why have we been created? Why should each and every person be created? There could be numerous people in this world but why have each and every one of us been fashioned and specifically created by God? The answer is simple: we have been created for love, to be children of God conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Who can be conformed to our image? Only our children and we love them.
Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
If we were to ask you “why do you want children?”, there could be many answers - some want children to avoid bareness, to be secured in old age, to have a standing in the society etc. but the one answer from any parent who will have true love in his/ her heart will be that he/ she wants children for the pure joy of loving his/ her flesh and blood. Therefore, God created us to be His children so that He can love us. God had tremendous and abundant overflowing love in Him that He wanted to shower on His creation whom He created in His own image. Though we were created in His own image, we still need His nature to be His children. This nature is His love i.e., the Holy Spirit which is His eternal life. But as we read previously, we rejected Him and went after our evil desires. But His love was unending that He again made a restoration plan through Jesus, which regrettably even now we reject and suffer in pure ignorance.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Repeatedly God refers to Israel as His children and He required them only to trust Him as their King and enjoy the royalty of being His children, but the whole of Old Testament records their rebellion and love for everything apart from God. God was with them, guiding, protecting, feeding and clothing them in Egypt, in all the battles, in the wilderness and in every hopeless situation but their hearts forever did not rest in His love but rejected His dominion and Kingship, thereby the sonship as well.
1 John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
In light of this revelation, if we rethink about our purpose in life, it is not for us to toil and succeed and accomplish great things for God or for ourselves. It is just to be His children, so we can only enjoy His love. What great peace and rest can this offer us? There is nothing more required of us, but to just surrender to Him and enjoy the richness of His love. Sadly, we Christians have been deceived by many false ideologies and have missed the core truth of creation and God Himself, and are suffering, which is what Jesus refers as “Come to me because you are weary and burdened. Only I can give you rest.” Anyone may think that their purpose is to serve God or be a doctor, a missionary, a teacher etc. All these are our temporary functions in this world. But it is not the purpose of our creation by Him. We may by any chance fail in these functions and be frustrated but the ultimate purpose of God for us is eternal and true peace, joy and rest.
3. He is our only peace and joy
John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”
In the 15th chapter of John, Jesus talks about our personal relationship with Him. He talks about how we can do nothing without Him and we need to be totally dependent on Him to have anything good in us. After emphasizing on this relationship, He then speaks this verse where He tells that He is saying all these things so that the joy that He has can become ours through this relationship. Jesus basically implies that He alone can be our joy; joy that is full and complete. Just before talking all this in the 15th chapter, Jesus says in the previous chapter:
John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
In both the above verses, He says that He is giving us His peace and joy that are not according to the worldly standards i.e., based on the pleasures of the five senses, incomplete and wavering. Though we are Christians, most often we lack peace and joy just like everyone else. There is nothing that sets us apart from the rest of the world. We have the same problems, difficulties and struggles, if not even more than the others. We are like the world running after and searching for peace and joy. We wonder how it could be possible to live in this world with peace and joy in the middle of our personal life crisis, joblessness, sickness, family problems, unsure future etc. We feel dry, worn out and are thirsty for rest and comfort. But Jesus says:
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.
He is promising us His rest not just after death but in this world itself. He promises us that His rest will be the solution to our weary, worn out and burdensome lives. But He gives a precondition to this rest: “Come to me, take my yoke and learn from me.” When we fulfill this condition, we find rest, but He clearly says that this rest is for our souls and that He does not give rest like the world does. He does not say that He will fulfill all our desires so we can find rest and peace. In the world, peace, joy and rest depend upon having a secured job, being sickness free, being married with children, owning a house and having a secured future. For us religious Christians it could even mean being sin free, working for God with all our resources and leading a perfect holy life. The list goes on. But sadly, most of us as Christians oppose God by desiring such materialistic, self-decided or self-centered things and decide that He has to fulfill our list of requests for us to be at rest, which is rest as per worldly standards. But note these important words by Him in the above verse “you will find rest for your souls.” He did not say “you will find rest for your body or for your life, future, family etc.”
We may still not understand what He means by rest for our souls. The problem we often have is that our deepest and most sincere desires are misplaced. We were created to love and worship God. There was no other purpose in Him creating us. Sadly, we left His one purpose and are chasing deceptions and think or convince ourselves that we love God; but then there are other priorities that occupy our hearts. These misplaced priorities become a burden to us even without our own knowledge. God does have a place in our lives, but not as the only true King. He is often a means to an end to our priorities. It could be any materialistic blessing or even an aspiration for a perfect holier life. There is nothing wrong in desiring for a holier walk with God or working for Him but the mistake we make is, we think it is we who have to walk this life and we put the focus on our holiness or our ministry and miss Jesus and reliance on Him in the whole picture. This just becomes a self-kingdom. We need not explain again that self-efforts and self-made rules for a holy life is not Christian life, rather it is abandonment to Him and trusting Him, whereby His love, faith, justice, righteousness and truth will become ours. We have nothing to offer or work for Him when our very breath itself is His grace. Just as we start our Christian journey through His blood, it continues till the end on the same basis. How many of us can still follow and love Jesus selflessly even if He will not grant us anything, even our own lives? Will we still be able to stand steadfast in Him even when our desires will never be fulfilled and we will be a failure in this world? Our souls by nature, inherited from our forefather Adam, are programmed to love the world and ourselves more than God; thereby our deepest and sincere desires are often our own idols and our souls are simply not able to love God.
This is what David writes:
Psalm 41:4 I said, “Lord, be merciful to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
David has understood that his soul that is supposed to love God as the one and only love, is sick and therefore, he is missing his focus and his life in God. So, he is crying for mercy and healing of his soul. Through this verse David also clearly communicates to us that he cannot heal his soul or control and divert it to love God but can only submit his desire for a restored soul into the hands of God. By now it is clear that we lack peace and joy because we missed the very purpose of our creation. As long as we miss this target and try to control and build our earthly kingdom, we are forever bound to the prince of the world and it is obvious that we will never find rest.
Yes, we may walk through the fire, wilderness and deep waters in the process of our transformation but through this, He separates the world from our souls and this is true rest. The world and its concerns are forever a burden because the ruler of this world is none other than Satan. Because of our submission, Jesus will change our deepest desires and love from this world and the things of the world to His love and life. This will bring us His joy and peace which is true rest. This is why He says that His yoke is light and easy.
Now, let us see what He means by the preconditions He mentions in Matthew chapter 11 for us to enter His rest. In the original Greek text, the word used for ‘rest’ is actually ‘anapausin’. It means two things 1. Stop 2. Recreate or refresh. Therefore, when we go to Him as mentioned above, He removes the yoke of the world that is burdensome and heavy on our necks and places on us His yoke that is easy and light because we are under the control of the King. His yoke will deliver us from the yoke of the world and requires no self-effort from us but a complete reliance on Him, whereby we have nothing to do but surrender to Him and trust Him with all our hearts which gives us rest. His yoke will tow us in His direction and He will teach us His truth whereby wherever He goes we go, what He says we do and His life dominates us and this becomes our Christian life. He stops the system and love for the world in our souls and refreshes it with His life, which is our true rest. Once we seek Him and His Kingdom in this way, He will take care of our worldly life as well. It will stop being a burden in our souls because He has shifted our love to Him and is in control of our earthly life as we are being yoked with Him.
Matthew 6:31-33 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
We hope now you understand why we Christians do not have peace or joy when we are actually supposed to have as it is one of the greatest promises of God. Since we follow a deceptive Christianity and left the Kingdom of God and His rest and have not understood what is meant by taking up His yoke, we struggle like the rest of the world for the things of the world and lack joy in our souls.