Isaiah 55:8-9 (KJV)
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Our Ways Are Not His Ways (crOss: Isaiah 55:8-9 )
We seem to think we know better than God as to what it takes to go to Heaven. The most common mistake is to add to the finished work of Jesus. When I realized exactly what Jesus did, it changed my life, and it should change yours. All my life I believed I was going to heaven based on what was taught to me by my friends, relatives, and the churches I went to. But I was wrong. I was going to an eternal hell and didn’t know it. That changed when I picked up my Bible for the first time and began to read it, because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Romans 10:16-17 – But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
And yet even when we hear the truth we still do it our own way. There was a story in the Bible that nailed it down for me. It was the story of Abraham taking his only son Isaac to sacrifice him, and Abraham told his son, “God will provide Himself a Lamb.” God did just that at the Cross.
Genesis 22:7-8 – And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Jesus knew what he had to do, and the CROSS was the answer. From before Genesis 1:1 to Calvary, God came and did His work in man, getting them to look forward to the Cross, and everyone after the Cross looks back to it. Again, man continues to try to do it his way. This is why we have all the different religions from AA to RU, from Baptist to Jehovah Witnesses, from Buddha to Mohamed, trying to work their way to heaven only to find the end is death, separated from Jesus who is God.
Savior’s (croSs: 2 Timothy 1:10)
Timothy 1:9-10 – Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
It is hard to fathom that before Genesis 1:1 I was called and was going to be saved by Jesus and yet the choice was mine to make in early February of 1988. In the middle of the night, unbeknownst to me, someone tried to break into my house. At the time, I believed that Jesus was God Himself and paid for my sin. I believed if I had made the wrong choice that night, I would not be here today, because the assailants would have gotten in my house that night.
Our Savior will mean a lot of things to many different people, especially the Jews who have rejected Him. Those who have experienced His grace and mercy will live with Him forever. This world is not my home.
The Savior is Jesus who saves, because of the CROSS, being saved from the Hell we live in, being saved from an eternal Hell and the Lake of Fire at the end.
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