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| “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” |
| —John 11:25-26 |
In this season of Advent, we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And, we wait expectantly and joyfully for the good news that Jesus has come back, as He promised He would. It is a time of quiet reflection and a time of exuberant joy and a time of hopeful waiting.
Fundamentally, Advent is also a time when we examine our relationship to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ever more difficult to do this because we live in a world that has become increasingly confused about devotion to God and discipleship in following in His footsteps.
Our world wants to assert that all religions are essentially the same. Some insist that religion is just a panacea for the ignorant and unenlightened. It has no real substance, no real power, no true grasp of reality. Even those who may believe in a so-called “Supreme Being” do not view Him as a person with whom we humans may have a relationship.
Christianity counters such claims by asserting that the God we worship is the one true God. He has revealed Himself to us as a single being with three expressed persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No other religion describes its god in quite the same way. It is a common misconception, even among some Christians that the god of Islam, Allah, is really the same as our triune God. But, Islam does not recognize a triune God.
While Christianity expresses God’s overriding quality as “love,” other religions depict their god as a harsh, judgmental being waiting to primarily punish, and in some limited cases, reward those who ardently follow orders.
One of the reasons that the current crisis with those who practice an extremely fundamental form of Islam seems beyond our comprehension is that we cannot understand how these adherents are commanded by Allah to kill all unbelievers, conquer their land, and destroy every vestige of them from the face of the earth.
This is not the God we Christians worship and adore. Yes, He is a holy God, a fully righteous God. He has dealt harshly with those who have turned their back on Him. But, from the time He sent His Son to earth until this very day, at no point has He ordered His followers to do anything but demonstrate His mercy, love, and grace to a needy and dying world.
The claims of Christ are clear. Even Jesus Himself made it crystal clear when He made this important statement followed by a question, as recorded in John 11:25-26:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
To the world around us, we Christians must show forth God’s love and care. As we reveal the power of Christ within us to those who cross our pathway, we ultimately ask the question, “Do you believe this?”
Let us move out into this new day with the confidence that comes from knowing our God is the One True God and His most important qualities are His holiness and His love.
