Reflecting on John 5: 19 – 29
The Old Testament is full of stories of God’s wrath for not following His laws. His people felt abandoned, even though they knowingly broke the Law. The Miracle is God loves us so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to teach us a new way where we can spend eternity in a new life with Him.
Jesus tells us in John 5:19-29 that eternal life is available to all the people and that God gave Jesus the authority to judge us all – pagan, Jew, living and dead. The laws are still there to guide us, but we are now judged differently.
We have a way of making things so complicated and asking so many questions that we lose the ability to totally love and to trust God. What a loving God we have to give EVERYONE the ability to be forgiven – no matter what we did or will do – simply by listening to Jesus’ teachings and believing in Him. Just by believing, we are given a whole new life, full of love, peace and grace no matter our circumstances. Awesome!
Imagine a time when you did something wrong, that you knew it was wrong before you did it and it made a close friend angry and turn away from you. How did you feel once you saw the consequences of what you did and all you wanted was to be forgiven and feel love from that person again? The punch in the pit of your stomach, loss of their love and knowing you hurt them was crushing.
How would you feel if all you needed to do was to hear them out, accept that you were wrong and believe in them; that they would forgive you and your relationship would be fully restored? It takes even less than this to be forgiven by God and accepted by Christ and is even more life altering than a restored friendship.
Written by: Carol Bowen, FaithPoint
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