Our ultimate objective through this book is to introduce Jesus as the Christ to you and share the good news that only He can be your joy, peace and rest and how you can experience and enjoy it; because the sole purpose of our life in this world and creation is to enjoy His pure and perfect love. He is our only life and His love is our only joy. We desire for you to acknowledge Him and surrender to Him so that you may enter His yoke and be bound to Him and come into a mutual and personal relationship with Him where you are completely abandoned into His hands and mercy. His Holy Spirit will guide you into the process that you have to walk through in your Christian life and make you a recipient of His love. Not only do we want to introduce you to Him, but to also to encourage you in this process to not lose hope or become weary and dull, because in the process of restoration and healing of the soul, there will be pain and suffering as we have seen in the above chapters. We have our own personal walk with Him and what we experience we do not force upon you to learn as the dictum as we believe that each one’s personal relationship with Jesus is the one that can introduce him/ her to His truth. His truth to you will be your deliverance; deliverance of your soul.
John 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Yes, pagan gods may speak back to their devotees but Jesus is the only King who speaks and when He speaks it is deliverance, joy and rest for the soul. His truth is the only one that can set any man free.
No other divination or communication with evil spirits sets any man free or brings love in his life. God is the only King who created us purely for His love. Therefore, the essence of Christianity is to trust Jesus, the King of Kings and feast at His table with Him and taste and see personally that He is good and experience His joy and peace.
Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
When you dedicate your life to this tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, it does not mean that your life will become rosy and delicious. We do not want to explain this again because we have already discussed this in the previous chapters; but, we would like to present the reality of tasting God.
Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
Following Jesus involves two things: denying yourself and taking up your cross, not once but daily!! This is not a one-day affair that most Christians think happens on the day they encounter Jesus and that thereafter life is going to be bright, perfect and great. This denying yourself and taking up His yoke daily is what leads you to taste Him and His goodness that eventually pours His love in your heart. This involves a lot of sacrifice which will be painful because your carnal mind has been your way of life till now. This concept maybe disappointing to some and a shock to others as opposed to the deceptive principles of Christianity which you may have followed so far. The Pharisees did not like this teaching of Jesus as well especially when He said:
Matthew 7:13,14 “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. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
By this we do not mean that you should suffer all your life in order to have eternal life. When you dedicate yourself to this difficult way, though it is arduous, eventually He brings peace, joy and love into your life. If you will holdfast in this dedication of denying yourself and taking up your cross, then He will also be steadfast in giving you His rest. They are like two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist or make sense without the other. Our earthly life simply is a reflection of the condition of our souls. Likewise, just as David prayed for the healing of his soul, if we do not shift our attention from our perishable bodies to our souls, then we are lost, miserable and far away from God’s purpose and Kingdom. This is why His rest, peace and joy are for the soul and not for our sensual and misplaced love of the world. God, with His supreme and royal purpose of loving His children through the sacrifice of His only son Jesus, intended to redeem, restore and save our souls back to Himself. Our endurance and submission to this restoration process which lasts till the very end of our lives is the true tasting and seeing His goodness at work.