No Other Name

A Thought for Today:
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12, New Testament).

A man named Peter, an early follower of Jesus, spoke those words to religious leaders in Jerusalem after he and another Jesus-follower, John, were ordered not to speak of Jesus again. They had also been beaten.

But Peter said that they couldn't help but speak of Jesus, no matter what the threats. Peter persisted in following Jesus because he had experienced Jesus' tough love and because he knew that Jesus had risen from the dead.

The process of dying will cause any person to fear. That's only natural. But the follower of Jesus has no fear about the time beyond the grave. We know that we belong to God forever!

That's why true Christians have always been in the forefront of fighting for what is right. Wilberforce and Newton fought slavery. Tutu combatted injustice in South Africa. Mother Teresa comforted the dead and stood against abortion as a form of birth control. Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church stood against Hitler and the Nazis. Billy Graham has continued to share Jesus Christ with the world in spite of almost constant death threats and the dismissive condescension of elites, both inside and outside the Church. Movements to establish hospitals and higher education have usually begun among those who confess Christ.

In spite of the hatred and threats heaped upon them, followers of Jesus have the "right stuff" to persist. That right stuff is an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ!

Karl Marx criticized religion as an opiate, insulating people from their own pain, preventing them from doing anything about injustice by focusing the religious on the rewards of a sweet by-and-by. Marx got it precisely wrong. Knowing that our eternities are secure gives followers of Jesus the freedom to live this life to the full.

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu fought against apartheid in South Africa, he received daily death threats. A reporter asked him why he persisted. Tutu replied that he couldn't help it; injustice was wrong and he would fight it. Besides, he added, death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.

God plants within the hearts of those who surrender themselves to Him through Jesus Christ, a love for the things God loves and a hatred for those things God hates. Although such passions will put them at odds with the prevailing values of the world, Jesus-followers will persist. They will, in that memorable phrase of Bruce Cockburn's, rise like grass through cement. Unafraid of death, appalled by the evil they see, they fight for what's right.

The greatest evil in the world is the imprisonment of sin that afflicts the human race. According to Psalm 51, we are born in sin. The Bible says that proper payment for our sin is death (Romans 6:23).

But God doesn't want us to die. He wants us to live with Him forever. That's why Jesus came into the world, lived a perfect and sinless life, died on a cross in our places, and rose from the dead. The most famous passage in the Bible quotes Jesus as He says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

Do you want to be free from the fears that hold you back and keep you from being all that God intended you to be--all that you know, deep inside, that you were meant to be?

Do you want to be free of those nagging feelings of inadequacy that dog you?

Do you want to experience peace in spite of the chaos?

Do you want to move toward becoming the loving person you dream of being?

Do you want to be confident about this life and the next?

Give your life to Jesus Christ and you will begin to experience these things. You will find yourself free to lovingly fight for what is right...free to act in loving ways toward others, free to enter the process of becoming the person God had in mind when He made you. And you will be unafraid of what is beyond the grave. You will belong to God. Surrender to Jesus Christ today and start truly living!