The death of the Lamb is drawing near in John 18. Jesus lives in this world for 33 years. He is totally obedient, and He is even willing to be crucified for our sins. We see that the High Priest, Pilate, Peter, Judas, and even the crowd, all sacrifice Jesus for their own benefits. The ironic thing is, the only one who gets the real benefit is the robber, Barabbas; he acquires true freedom of life. We are all Barabbas; we are all sinners. We are no better than the others. However, we are all free because Jesus Christ was crucified for us. Perhaps many people consider themselves free, but that freedom is only the short-term freedom of the flesh; their spirit is actually bound. The only true freedom can only be found in Jesus.
When we invite people to join services or trainings, we often get responses like, “I’m still waiting for God’s calling,” or “Let’s wait and see.” And yet, God is always waiting for us! Every day so many people are walking toward their death, and God asks, “Who can I send? Who will go for us?” If churches only talk about love, or tell our brothers and sisters “It’s ok. Take it easy,” they would trick us to forget the Great Commission God has given us, which would in turn cost us our eternal reward.
God is the captain of firefighters, and we are all his crew. When firefighters hear the alarm, they need to suit up immediately and set off to the scene of fire. Firefighters require very good training, otherwise, they won’t be able to save people from the fire, they may even get killed themselves. In the same way, we need to be trained and equipped after we are called by God. We need to seek the truth so that we don’t take in everything others say or follow blindly the secular trend and be captured by our enemy. Because of our training, we would be able to follow the rules of the Bible and know what to do upon the order of our captain; this is how God’s army should be like!
We need to let God’s words to transform and enhance our lives. And we need to make God’s words the foundation and the source of strength of our services. This way, we can spread the good news of Jesus effectively and complete the work of God!
Message by Elder Yeh / Summary and response by Jim Lin
