True Gospel with SAVIOUS-PARKER KWINIKA
HAVE you ever been wrongly judged or condemned for your cultural, traditional or societal beliefs?
Have you ever been accused of not being a born again or a Christian?
What was your reaction?
Fellow brethren, fear not!
Our Lord Jesus did not come to earth to look for the righteous.
Instead, Jesus Christ came to look for the so-called sinners or evildoers so that he saves and makes them righteous.
Religious groupings always judge people for being ‘sinners’ yet our Lord Jesus Christ insists His mission from heaven was for these despised people of colour, tribe, race or creed to be saved.
Luke 5:32 of the Contemporary English Version confirms this True Gospel.
It reads, “I didn’t come to invite good people to turn to God. I came to invite sinners.”
The Amplified Bible states: “I did not come to call the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to repent], but sinners to repentance [to change their old way of thinking, to turn from sin and to seek God and His righteousness].”
Our Lord Jesus Christ was reacting to the Pharisees after they had seen him dining with tax collectors and the so-called sinners.
As usual, Jesus was in the company of His disciples where multitudes of people followed him so that they hear the word of Jehovah.
When the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with tax collectors (sinners), they asked His disciples on Mark 2:16 querying: “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
But listen to Jesus’ response on Mark 2:17 of the Good News Translation.
He remarked, “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”
Jesus Christ nailed it all.
He knew well that under this sun, there are these self-proclaimed holy people, including churches, who always despise those who neither believed nor understood the word of Jehovah.
When Jesus answered the Pharisees’ question, he knew well from his experience, he healed sin-induced injuries – both physical sickness and sinful-sickness.
Jesus did not come to “call” righteous people, but rather sinful people, just as healthy people do not typically seek out a doctor.
Jesus’ words in his response offer a double meaning in a sense.
On one hand, He explains His mission on earth as a friend of sinners who comes to save lost souls. On the other hand Jesus also rebukes the religious leaders who see themselves as righteous and without need of Jesus Christ and the salvation He provides.
Further into the book of Matthew 7:1 of the New International Version, Jesus says: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
The New Living Translation declares: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.”
Although many people wrongly use this verse as an attempt to silence their critics by telling them they have no right whatsoever in telling whether they were wrong or right, Jesus proved to all sundry that this message had indeed not been clearly understood.
Jesus knew that many believers would wrongly judge others based on their religion, tradition, custom, colour, tribe, race or creed.
However, the good news is that those that truly acknowledge their sinful acts and turn to the Lord Jehovah, all their sins are immediately washed away regardless of being judged by the world of who we are or we were.
Psalm 32:1 of the English Standard Version mentions: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Romans 4:7 of the Good News Translation notes: “Happy are those whose wrongs are forgiven, whose sins are pardoned!”
While the world cannot stop talking, commenting, criticising or making opinions about your ways of life, put trust only in Jehovah God. All shall be well.
Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, those who believe in this True Gospel, say amen!
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