Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Faith, the Gift
Faith, the Gift
No one who comes to faith in Jesus Christ ever got there on his own. Yes, we made a choice but inevitably it was God’s grace, His will and His prodding through the Spirit, that enabled us to see in Jesus, that being created in His image is the statement, the final statement about who and what we really are. Do all people have this opportunity? Can all people find their eternal destiny in Jesus? Can we be sure that God is on every person’s side?
No more indelible fingerprint has left its impression on history than the Cross of Jesus the Christ sending an echoing ‘Yes!’ through the canyons of time.
That picture of Jesus nailed, bleeding, suffering and pierced leaves no doubt that man’s nature had sunk beneath the depths of oblivion and that a loving God sacrificed His most precious relationship to reach down and bring each of us back to Him. Who can really grasp the breadth of that one moment of deliberate love that turned each of our conscious moments away from self-conscious anxiety to God-conscious assurance? One moment in which the course of mankind was reversed from self-destruction to self-reconstruction. One moment in which each heart was given a second look, a second chance, and a second hope. That one moment of perfect faith in which Jesus suffered His last agonizing breath and said, ‘Into thy hands I commit my Spirit.”
That moment was our last moment. That moment was our last breath. That moment was our last awareness. He embraced that last moment for all and each one of us because that was our eternal destiny He was carrying by faith in His one mind, heart and spirit. It was not only His death but our eternal death He carried in faith into that final moment.
It was an awakening moment for us. It awakened us to the reality that eternal death and separation from God awaited us at our physical death. The world and all humanity were already dead and didn’t know it. It took the Cross to open our eyes to reality. Death is real. Eternal death is forever. Our Heavenly Father “loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in Him should not die but have everlasting life (Jn.3:16).” Eternal death was replaced by eternal life. The Cross turned it all around. When Jesus bore that reality on the Cross it was for us to be awakened to its weight, a weight we could never understand, imagine or handle. It was a weight we carry in the experience of aloneness, guilt, fear, pride and emptiness. He lifted it all up on the Cross, bore it, suffered under it and died with it. “If I be lifted up,” he said, “I will draw all men unto me.” He drew our death into His death, like a poultice absorbed its power.
Then, in the majesty of another moment, suspended in the midst of darkness, the endless hand of the Father reached down into that murky oblivion of eternal death surrounding Jesus and with His Holy Spirit crushed the power of darkness, the devil’s grip over the human universe, and drew Jesus up from the grave. There from the tomb of gloom there was no longer room for the doom of death to hold Him. His “one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sin of the whole world” cancelled the devil’s plan of separation and death. The whole Jesus; mind, heart, Spirit and body, came forth through the stone sealed tomb. In that moment a new moment emerged and for us a new life emerged.
Through the neat tightly secured burial clothes and spices, through the despairing attempts at despairing dignity, through the ‘it-happens-to-all-of-us’ resignation, through the platitudes of mourners, be they friend or enemy, through the grief and sadness, through the day-by-day putting off the inevitable, through the recollection of our own denial of death to deny its power, through the memory of our own beleaguered past, through the stone sealed rock cave, came Jesus alive in a new and dramatic contrast to the life of this world. What was an impassable stone trap, an impervious symbol of sin holding us in isolation from God and others, Jesus not only walked through but gave death the final reality of its own ultimate demise. What Jesus did was to make sin, the devil and death walk the same plank to their end forever. Their threat to us is empty. Their finality lies with the grave clothes in Jesus’ tomb.
The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ made null and void the accusation laid against us in the devil’s court of inquiry into which the devil led us through his tempting power. No claim by the deceiver, the father of lies, the evil one, could stand in the just presence of the Father. The devil would pay for his conspiracy exiled forever to his own dominion of fear, self-hate and self-destruction. For us the Resurrection of Jesus is the promise and experience of life forever. The Resurrection of Jesus knows no past. The Resurrection holds each of us in the arms of a loving Father. The Resurrection of Jesus is life in a kingdom of those who believe Him and live in an eternal present with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The gift of faith, now available from your local personal heart consultant, the Lord Jesus, for free. All you have to do is ask Him. In addition, at no cost, you will receive eternal life. Don’t wait! Call now to receive this amazing offer. You have nothing to lose but sin and death. Do I hear an AMEN?
“We must never think of salvation as a kind of transaction between God and us in which he contributes grace and we contribute faith. For we were dead, and had to be quickened before we could believe. No, Christ's apostles clearly teach elsewhere that saving faith too is God's gracious gift.”--John Stott, "The Message of Ephesians" (1979), p. 83.
No one who comes to faith in Jesus Christ ever got there on his own. Yes, we made a choice but inevitably it was God’s grace, His will and His prodding through the Spirit, that enabled us to see in Jesus, that being created in His image is the statement, the final statement about who and what we really are. Do all people have this opportunity? Can all people find their eternal destiny in Jesus? Can we be sure that God is on every person’s side?
No more indelible fingerprint has left its impression on history than the Cross of Jesus the Christ sending an echoing ‘Yes!’ through the canyons of time.
That picture of Jesus nailed, bleeding, suffering and pierced leaves no doubt that man’s nature had sunk beneath the depths of oblivion and that a loving God sacrificed His most precious relationship to reach down and bring each of us back to Him. Who can really grasp the breadth of that one moment of deliberate love that turned each of our conscious moments away from self-conscious anxiety to God-conscious assurance? One moment in which the course of mankind was reversed from self-destruction to self-reconstruction. One moment in which each heart was given a second look, a second chance, and a second hope. That one moment of perfect faith in which Jesus suffered His last agonizing breath and said, ‘Into thy hands I commit my Spirit.”
That moment was our last moment. That moment was our last breath. That moment was our last awareness. He embraced that last moment for all and each one of us because that was our eternal destiny He was carrying by faith in His one mind, heart and spirit. It was not only His death but our eternal death He carried in faith into that final moment.
It was an awakening moment for us. It awakened us to the reality that eternal death and separation from God awaited us at our physical death. The world and all humanity were already dead and didn’t know it. It took the Cross to open our eyes to reality. Death is real. Eternal death is forever. Our Heavenly Father “loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in Him should not die but have everlasting life (Jn.3:16).” Eternal death was replaced by eternal life. The Cross turned it all around. When Jesus bore that reality on the Cross it was for us to be awakened to its weight, a weight we could never understand, imagine or handle. It was a weight we carry in the experience of aloneness, guilt, fear, pride and emptiness. He lifted it all up on the Cross, bore it, suffered under it and died with it. “If I be lifted up,” he said, “I will draw all men unto me.” He drew our death into His death, like a poultice absorbed its power.
Then, in the majesty of another moment, suspended in the midst of darkness, the endless hand of the Father reached down into that murky oblivion of eternal death surrounding Jesus and with His Holy Spirit crushed the power of darkness, the devil’s grip over the human universe, and drew Jesus up from the grave. There from the tomb of gloom there was no longer room for the doom of death to hold Him. His “one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sin of the whole world” cancelled the devil’s plan of separation and death. The whole Jesus; mind, heart, Spirit and body, came forth through the stone sealed tomb. In that moment a new moment emerged and for us a new life emerged.
Through the neat tightly secured burial clothes and spices, through the despairing attempts at despairing dignity, through the ‘it-happens-to-all-of-us’ resignation, through the platitudes of mourners, be they friend or enemy, through the grief and sadness, through the day-by-day putting off the inevitable, through the recollection of our own denial of death to deny its power, through the memory of our own beleaguered past, through the stone sealed rock cave, came Jesus alive in a new and dramatic contrast to the life of this world. What was an impassable stone trap, an impervious symbol of sin holding us in isolation from God and others, Jesus not only walked through but gave death the final reality of its own ultimate demise. What Jesus did was to make sin, the devil and death walk the same plank to their end forever. Their threat to us is empty. Their finality lies with the grave clothes in Jesus’ tomb.
The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ made null and void the accusation laid against us in the devil’s court of inquiry into which the devil led us through his tempting power. No claim by the deceiver, the father of lies, the evil one, could stand in the just presence of the Father. The devil would pay for his conspiracy exiled forever to his own dominion of fear, self-hate and self-destruction. For us the Resurrection of Jesus is the promise and experience of life forever. The Resurrection of Jesus knows no past. The Resurrection holds each of us in the arms of a loving Father. The Resurrection of Jesus is life in a kingdom of those who believe Him and live in an eternal present with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The gift of faith, now available from your local personal heart consultant, the Lord Jesus, for free. All you have to do is ask Him. In addition, at no cost, you will receive eternal life. Don’t wait! Call now to receive this amazing offer. You have nothing to lose but sin and death. Do I hear an AMEN?
“We must never think of salvation as a kind of transaction between God and us in which he contributes grace and we contribute faith. For we were dead, and had to be quickened before we could believe. No, Christ's apostles clearly teach elsewhere that saving faith too is God's gracious gift.”--John Stott, "The Message of Ephesians" (1979), p. 83.
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