"Brief Application"

 "Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes." (John 12:30 KJV)

  "For Moses writes that the law's way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. But faith's way of getting right with God says, "Don't say in your heart, 'Who will go up to heaven?' (to bring Christ down to earth). And don't say, 'Who will go down to the place of the dead?' (to bring Christ back to life again)." In fact, it says, "The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart." And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved." (Romans 10:5-10 NLT)

 Here is something of importance, I think many of us actually know, but don't always apply it, as we should: Although our salvation was swift and instant, it must be alive and continue to grow to a place of maturity in Christ. The only excuse that we have for that not to happen, is the God takes us home, right after we have been saved; other than that, we must bear fruit!  

 The reason that I bring this up, is because the word that Jesus uses for, "sakes," is a word that is meant to mean something temporary, as if to say, 'It was a passing shadow'. In other words, it was not meant to be something to base your faith in, only something to spark an interest. 

 A good illustration of what this might mean, was when Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transformed with Moses and Elisha; afterwards, they thought they should build some type of altar on that place to mark the occasion. It was not something to build upon, as if that was the spiritual nugget to make us believe and commit our lives to follow Jesus! It was just a brief sign of God's glory, and the radiance of His only begotten Son. 

 What it is that causes us to die to ourselves and follow Jesus, is that He died for us, being the Sacrifice that was sent by the Father to cleanse us from our sins, and give us eternal life, in Him! And, as if that wasn't enough, to prove that He could grant us the eternal life that He has promised, He was raised to life again, and is now sitting at the Father's right hand, defending us when we fail to follow Him as we should! 

 He has delivered and secured us in Heaven, way out of reach from our own destruction! There is almost nothing that we can do to undo what He has done; as a matter of fact, I believe that we must work very hard to destroy the work that He has started in us; and even then, we might find that we were unsuccessful in pulling that off!  

 The day and the hour of my salvation was only a brief application, but eternal solution; and it stuck! Why did it stick? Why was it made permanent and unlikely to be undone? Because it was cast upon the soil that could bear fruit! The soil that we need in order to make that happen, is love; knowing how much God loves us, makes this stony heart a place where love can be planted and grow...

"When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me completely. Three things will last forever - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NLT)