Jesus Is Still The Answer

Knowledge has been increasing with each successive generation and we are now in the Information Age where we can have world libraries at the tip of our fingers while in the deep forests of Binga in Zimbabwe or the high-rise buildings of Dubai. This was an unfathomable feat just a few decades ago and people in each age think they are much wiser than the previous because of the exponential increase of information but what remains the same are the human challenges. With all the information filling the airwaves man still has the question, "Who am I". He is still looking for meaning and wants to know who he is. Now isn't that amazing that man is still trying to “find himself” with the myriad of information found anywhere and everywhere? 

It is because there is a lostness and a void that mankind sees in itself and it is not like man does not know the solution, he does but he is unwilling to accept the true and trusted answer [Romans 1:21-23]. I remember the time when everyone would say Jesus is the answer but then hear someone even believers ask, "What is the question?", well here we are still, asking the question but not wanting to admit that Jesus is the answer to everything.

Some motivational speakers try to cheer people up and [mis]quote scripture saying "money answers all things" [Ecclesiastes 10:19] yet you find millionaires and people with immense riches committing suicide, taking drugs and killing babies. They are ever looking for the next thing that will make them feel high or human again. They are looking for joy in things that were morally wrong in past generations [Romans 1:22-25] but have been legalised by the ballot. They say they do not want any limitations in their lives as if they do not know what inhibits them from finding true joy [Isaiah 59:1-13] but as they break the boundaries that protect them, they find themselves in a deep quagmire of emptiness and meaninglessness. O, what a show they make when they "come out of the closet" but have you listened to those who have truly found freedom in Christ when they realize their sin? They say it was all a lie, a distortion and a way to destruction.  

The gods are increasing as information goes around and people are choosing their gods today. There is the god of greed who clothes himself with religion and comes in the name of the prosperity gospel [1 Timothy 6:6-10]. That god has taken captive many who would have been effective in the Kingdom of God. Families are broken down because one believes this and the other that and division is taking place right now. After all the Lord said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household” [Matthew 1034-36]. So much for world peace. The earth will not have peace until the Lord restores all things but as for you the church, fret not, you will have peace [John 16:33, Ephesians 2:14, Philippians 4:7]

Then there is the god of self-worship. In seeking to find themselves they make themselves the centre of their lives, “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money…” [2 Timothy 3:2]. They even talk about “forgiving yourself”; something the Lord never asked them to do. Maybe this equation will help them understand that, “Christ’s forgiveness of myself + my forgiveness = heresy” but “Christ’s forgiveness of my self and my acceptance of His forgiveness = Gospel” [Rick Thomas]. You need the forgiveness of God. Without it, your road leads to eternal punishment.

If there is anything the church should know about and hope in God in these times of difficulty [2 Timothy 3:1], it is that "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” [2 Peter 1:3-4]. We have victory guaranteed in spite of all we may be seeing in the world today. 

His aim is “… that through the very great promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful nature”. There is need to escape because the world and its systems have taken many into captivity, into prison through the sinful nature. The world is bound as we speak and many who are shouting “freedom, freedom” are simply going deeper and deeper into despondency yet they make great boasting with the tongue, “… With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?" [Psalm 12 3-4] they say and that reminds me of the subjects [Jews] in the parable of Luke 19:15 who went to the authorities after the noble master had left and said, "... We do not want this man to reign over us" when He had left them with his servants [Disciples]. And didn’t they later on cry out, “Away with Him, away with Him! …We have no king but Caesar?” [John 19:15]. 

Isn’t this parable a prophecy which was and is still being fulfilled today? What the world is rejecting is not us the servants, it is the noble man whom they blame and do not want. Even one of the servants of the noble man who like Demas, “in love with the world” [2 Timothy 4:10] sold him out and said, “Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow’” [Luke 19:20-21]. It is Jesus that the world is ganging up against because He spells judgement to it. The Pharisees saw themselves and they were seen by everyone as the most righteous and holy of them all but He denounced and called them hypocrites, murderers, whitewashed tombs full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness [Matthew 23:27]. He also denounced them as Hell bound saying, “… except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven” [Matthew 5:20]. 

How could this noble man be loved by his subjects? They hated him says the parable. They rejected and hated Him without a cause [John 15:25] after all they did not lay any charge against him. All we know is he was a noble man. But His fruitful servants continued to use their talents and said, ‘This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.’ [Acts 4:11-13] 

It is through the knowledge of Him and His precious and very great promises that we can overcome the present evil age [Galatians 1:4]. These precious and very great promises are not money or any temporal blessings but godly virtues to help us escape the corruption in the world because He called us to His own glory and excellence which do not depend on money or material things. “He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” [2 Peter 1:5-11].

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About The Author:

Pastor Sam Machacka is co-founder of Brink Ministries Southern Africa. A wonderful colleague and good friend. Equipping Pastors and Church leaders in Southern Africa. He grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe with his beautiful wife Mildred and they are blessed with three lovely children namely Samantha, Munashe and Joshua but they are now serving as missionaries in Malawi since August 2018

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