Five Reasons Jesus Came (Week 05)

To Destroy the Works of the Devil

     Listen to what the Apostle John declares in 1 John 3:8b KJV - “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” Let that soak in...this was the purpose of Jesus' incarnation. Satan had stronghold after stronghold set up in the hearts and lives of humanity, and Jesus singlehandedly destroyed the Enemy’s strongholds. Satan is rendered powerless because of the manifestation of Jesus. The claim Satan had was that every human succumbed to the power of sin. No one was perfect. Satan had a perfect track record in regards to human depravity--all had sinned. By the appearance of Jesus, Satan was undone! The greek in this passage for “destroy the works” literally means “Jesus loosed the bonds and undid and ruined the Devil’s business.” Essentially, Jesus made Satan go bankrupt!

     We were slaves to Satan. We were going about his business. He chained us up each night and as we went about our work each day, he would make sure to subject us to his cruel torment. He would give often reminders of our willing allegiance to His diabolical kingdom. 

Then Jesus came. 

     In one victorious act all our chains fell free, and Satan had no rightful claim on us because Jesus paid for our freedom. Satan’s enterprise was ruined, bankrupt and finished. He was done in!

     However, while Jesus Christ indeed destroyed the Devil’s works, it appears that mankind is still under Satan’s rule and power. How can that be, if Jesus truly destroyed Satan’s work? 

Is this verse some kind of altruistic nicety? 

Is it some kind of dangling carrot? 

Is it God mocking us? 

     Well, I am confident the word of God never stutters. Thus, this verse is true! Jesus offers freedom from the power of Satan. The Devil’s work HAS been destroyed. The siege-works of hell are rendered ineffectual. As stated earlier the chains have fallen off of us! Now, the problem is, we have two types of people: those who rejoice in their removed chains and submit themselves to Christ in love, or those who believe freedom is too good to be true and so they “re-enslave” themselves to the chains of Satan. They somehow find the offer of eternal bliss in Christ more distasteful than willing subjection to the yoke of slavery to sin, self and Satan. 

     Oh, this verse is so simple and beautiful. A child would believe it! But we, who are more “intellectually mature,” explain away verses like this, simply because our experience differs from the fact of this promise! Believe this profound and beautiful truth: Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Satan’s claim on me is null and void. Temptation becomes profoundly absurd. The natural depravity I’m born in is suddenly transformed into Christ-centered passion for holiness! Bask in the utter wonder of this statement. We are born under the yoke of the Law of Sin. Jesus Christ single handedly broke the bonds of our slavery and calls us to be free. Oh, what joy we so often forfeit when we wrongly believe that all Jesus is capable of is forgiving our sins.

     The power and significance of Christ reaches much further than simply forgiving our sins. 

He purchased: 

......a clean and guiltless conscience 

..............a grace imbued life 

.......................a joyous numbness to Satan’s beguiling art

..............................................a destruction of all flesh, 

.............................................................a consecration of every mark of wickedness. 

We are called the “righteousness of God.” 

We are called “sons and daughters.” 

We are renovated within, redeemed from sin, renewed by Him! 

The works of the devil: sin, enmity with God, depravity, wickedness, sinful lust, fleshly cravings--destroyed. 

utterly

completely

unconditionally

irrevocably

entirely...

destroyed

     In this battle against Satan, we were utterly helpless against his power. Yet, in one act of humble sacrifice, Jesus Christ rendered useless and powerless all of the Enemy’s designs and tactics. Now He makes God’s very power available to us who believe. Everything we need for life and godliness is supplied by the chain-breaking, Satan destroying, flesh binding, hell dousing power of God. 

     The reason Jesus came was to ensure that Satan’s might could have no claim on your life; his power is broken. Will you accept and simply believe the mighty power of this truth?! Hallelujah to the Son of God for destroying the works of the Devil and making an open mockery of them!

Five Reasons Jesus Came (Week 04)

To Immanuel
(yes I am using a noun as a verb, I was homeschooled so I can get away with such grammatical violations)!
    Soak in this statement: we were made for eternal communion with the God. Does that rouse your heart? I mean, this is the God of Whom it is said, “in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16:11).” He created us with the intention of glorifying Himself by sharing His eternal delight with us. We’re talking about God, the One who made quasars and canaries, who instated the laws of thermodynamics and fashioned the molecular structure of all the atoms in the universe. 

     I have literally no clue exactly what a quasar is. I think it is some kind of galaxy that has a massive black hole at it’s center and therefore shines really brightly. I have no clue why God saw fit to create the specific species we now call canaries. The laws of thermodynamics are so simply stated, but I have no grasp of what life would be like without them; in fact, while I understand the statements of these laws, I have no way to ensure they continue or that they don’t somehow fall apart. I mean I am completely unable to help or assist the laws of thermodynamics continue to function and do whatever entropic processes they...um... do! And molecules and atoms...I glazed over in Chemistry when we studied molecular structure. 

     I am not saying all this to highlight my poor scholasticism. I was a straight “A” student in high-school, and had like a 3.9 GPA in college, so it’s not as if I am uneducated. I bring this up to point out the magnitude of God. He understands these things, well, ALL things perfectly. He is what makes sure canaries reproduce, quasars glow, laws of thermodynamics successfully operate, and molecules bond! God’s resume is faultless, and He understands and comprehends and uphold the universe by His own word (Heb. 1:3-4)! This is the same God who created humans (knowing full well that they’d reject Him and choose depravity over the delight of His divinity), and He created us to share His own most precious self with us!

     My mind hurts when I consider such things. I just want to shake my head and say, “are you kidding?!” So, God, who is massively brilliant and needs no help upholding the universe, creates humans in order to clothe them in His glory. We reviled Him and throughout history we rejected Him continually. Yet, the entire course of Human history is riddled with story after story of God continually evidencing His design to bring us back into His presence. Tabernacles, temples, altars, exiles, floods, parting seas, plagues, battles, arks, babies, old men, prophets, priesthoods, kings, judges, patriarchs, sojourns, and veils all were designed by God to show that He was intent on sharing Himself. He was bent on the conquest of human hearts and imparting the joy that flows from His boundless store of delight. Yet humans, rather than running to that reservoir of eternal bliss, turn-tailed and marched the opposite direction; we chose self-rule and misery of God-rule and joy.

      However, we should remember that God is free and nothing can thwart Him (Is. 14:27).  Thus, His sovereign purpose was always to bring man to Himself in eternal communion. Thus, He sent Jesus, and we are told that one of His names was Immanuel: God with Us. The purpose of God all along was to glorify Himself by sharing Himself and to clothe us in His glory. This is what we were made for and this is where true joy is found and beheld! So, Jesus came. He was God, and He was with us. Jesus came to Immanuel. Jesus came and when He died we’re told that the veil, which in ancient times God had commanded should ever separate the HOLY GOD from depraved humanity, was torn asunder and thus the God  of the Universe shouted to this speck-of-dust world, “IMMANUEL! God with us! I AM is accessible to every human heart!” As the old Christmas Carol, “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” states so well,

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

[...]O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Immanuel!

     Immanuel has come. He has imparted to us the blessing of His heaven. And, truly, we may say that the true blessing of Heaven is God’s own dear and joyous presence! The question is, will we open our hearts to the design of Almighty God? He has every right to our hearts, and we have all the bliss and joy of His righteous and beautiful face to gain! Why reject the offer of eternal joy and communion with God Most High? Jesus came to reunite your heart and life to God ALmighty, and in that dear friendship you will find the joy of your soul! Take hold of it...it is what Jesus came to do. He came to Immanuel, let Him! 

Five Reasons Jesus Came (Week 03)

To perfectly live out what Human existence was intended to be.

     Contrary to popular opinion, we are not here as a result of random chance, unplanned mutations, and unpredictable change. We are here by the intent and purpose of God Almighty. And yes, He has an intention for the human life. He created Adam and Eve perfectly. They were literally clothed in the felicitous glory of God. They had His presence and needed nothing. They were perfect. After their fall, however, the human heart was immediately and innately wicked, there was no good thing in us, and the luster of God’s beauty was marred by selfishness and sin. However, God’s standard for the human life remain unchanged. In order to “climb His holy hill,” we had to be utterly perfect (Ps. 24). This was (and still is) clearly an impossibility for fallen and depraved humanity. While none of this caught God off guard and this all played into His perfect plan of redemptive grace and majesty, He chose to construct an entire nation built around His perfect laws of life and holiness. We now know this as the Israelite history. One needs only read through the books of Genesis and Exodus to see God’s design and desire for this peculiar group of nationless people (Deu. 14:2). 

     However, as we plod through the Old Testament, we quickly see this “special people,” being especially rebellious and unreasonably unfaithful to God’s holy design. This is because the entire law of Moses was designed by God to show man’s complete inability to live up to God’s standard of perfection. In other words, humanity was damned because of our powerlessness to perform what God demanded. Yet, the Old Testament is not as gloomy as it is often painted to be. Throughout it shines the light of hope: Messiah! Time after time God promises a perfect King, Prophet, Judge, and Savior. And surely, if we look closely at the life of Jesus, we can see that He is the fulfillment of this promise. Jesus “did no sin, neither was guile (manipulative and selfish behavior and speech) found in His mouth (1 Pt. 2:22).” Only God could live up to God’s standards. So, He came Himself and performed the requirements of God for holiness, perfectly. God created an impossible standard, in order to show that He alone could be our means of salvation and reunification with Him. 

     James calls God’s standard of holiness, “the perfect law of liberty (Jam. 1:25).” Jesus Christ fulfilled the perfect law of liberty, perfectly. And our only means of salvation is found in His life being infused into us, through faith. Christianity is not based on our merit or ability to conform to rules of holiness. It is about a complete yieldedness and surrender to the power of God’s most precious Son’s life within us. It is no accident that Jesus said, “If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mt. 16:24).” Jesus came to be what humanity was created to be: complete surrender to the power of God. Jesus said of Himself, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things (Jn. 8:28).” Thus, why should we, mere humans, try to obtain or curry God’s favor through our own efforts. Jesus has done it all. He invites us to die, that He might live through us. Henry Scougle said, “Perfect love [...] is a kind of voluntary death, wherein the lover dies to himself, and all his own interests, not thinging of them, nor caring for them any more, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party he whom he loves...” If we truly love God, then our sole response must be hiding ourselves in the perfections of Jesus Christ and become yielded to His absolute hold upon us. Our love must become a death to self and a life to Christ. 

     Jesus is called the “Second Adam,” because He is literally the rebirth of humanity as God intended it. We can take hold of this immaculate promise, if only we die to our sinful selfishness and open ourselves to the infilling of the presence of the Perfect One. He alone could obtain God’s favor, so He did it alone! Thus, will we let Him do, in our lives, what He came to do? Or will we continue in our human insufficiency?! Let it be the former!