Jesus Christ, the Seeker and the Redeemer!

‘Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”’ - Luke 19:1-10 NIV

Most of us are afraid and worried if we are lost, especially when we are young, because we do not know where our next step is going to be or we are worried that we are going to make wrong move. If we are lost, we are most likely to panic and we try to get back on track. I was about to get lost when I was very young in Korea. I was in the mall and was not concentrating on my parents as they go. I thought I was following my mother  but  she called me on the other side. Because of this,  I was really embarrassed and noticed that the woman I was following was not my mother.

As we feel that we are safe and secured when we are found, it is like that spiritually as well except we do not have spiritual mother that we cling to for spiritual health. I kind of have a spiritual mother but she is just the woman that I greatly admire as a devoted fellow believer in Jesus Christ and she is more like my spiritual mentor or a teacher. However, all of us have one spiritual and heavenly Father (Ephesians 4:6), whom we cannot see until we get to the kingdom of heaven. He is the God of all living (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 24:1). Therefore, we become children of God as soon as we believe Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour (John 1:12-13).  Jesus Christ is the Lord because He is the perfect image of God (Colossians 1:15). He is also the Saviour because He was crucified on the cross for our sins and disobedience that is under God, the Almighty (Colossians 2:13-15). 1 Corinthians 8:6 declares, “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

Jesus, the Son of Man, came into this world to seek and to save the lost. This is probably because all of us have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), which means we have been disobedient against God, since Adam, the first man of God, ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:4-3:19). I think we have became sinners because we have been fallen away from the truth and trying to become smart and clever in our own ways. This is probably reason that God sent Himself as Jesus Christ  into the world to crucify Himself on the cross, in order to prove that there is better life than the world is urging us to have (John 10:10).  Moreover, when Jesus was crucified, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51)—meaning, that the separation from God and human beings is no more (Hebrews 10:19-20). In other words, God has given us eternal life through the blood of Jesus (Romans 6:23). Hence, Jesus Christ declares, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

God has never viewed us with favouritism, such as pouring His Spirit into particular people who has been doing good deeds to save them spiritually and not putting His Spirit into bad people. He has been pouring His Spirit into all of us after the resurrection of Jesus (John 16:7-15) because He desperately wants to restore us back to His kingdom, so it is a matter of the fact that we accept and believe in Him or not (Revelation 3:20). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18) This does not mean that we are going to never have temptations to get back into our own nature, leave and forsake Jesus Christ, especially following Him becomes hard (Matthew 7:13-14) or when crises come into our lives. It means that when we believe in Jesus, we become eternally secure (1 Peter 5:8-11). This is because of the power of the Spirit of God (John 14:15-27).  Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 10:13 states that God is going to never put temptations into us and if we have temptations for some reason, then He is going to provide a way out. Thus, we are saved spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ. Because of this, followers of Jesus tend to do good works in Him (Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:3-8; Romans 3:21-31).

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.” (1 Peter 1:13-17)

Galatians 3:29 NLT/NIV proclaims that if we belong to Jesus Christ, then we are counted as the children of Abraham and as Abraham’s seed. This is probably because God spoke to him that He is going to make him a great nation and all people are going to be blessed through him (Genesis 12:2-3). In addition to this, God called him the righteousness of God (Genesis 15:6). Because of this, I also think we are Abraham’s seed, that we probably should consider him as a spiritual model, due to the fact that Abraham believed in God, even though he did not know where he was being led to (Hebrews 11:8) In other words, God wants us to always have faith in God—up to the point that we would not know where we are being led to—such as what Abraham had in his faith journey. I am in that faith journey right now because of going to Unitec. I do not know where I am being led to, due to the fact that I do not really need to know how to service computers. All I want to do is going to a Bible College, in order to become a Christian Writer. I believe theology is only study that I am passionate about because I desire nothing else apart from Jesus Christ. Because I found going to Unitec to finish computer course is the will of God for me, I am going to try my best to study computers. Proverbs 3:5-8 declares, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.”

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)