In the book of John when Jesus was talking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus a religious leader and teacher of Israel. He came to Jesus at night to find out more from Him under the cover of darkness. As Jesus was speaking to him, one of the things Jesus told him was, [John 3:17,21].
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”
“For everyone practicing evil hates the light, lest his deed’s should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Jesus is called the light of the world. Why? One of the many reasons is that He brought us the truth directly from God that His Father gave Him to give to us. When you turn on the light in a dark room, you do not know what you will find until the light manifests it. The light then will show you both the good and the bad in the room.
When two people witness a bank robbery and the thief gets away, the police will come and question the witnesses to shed light on what the police don’t know. So lets say one witness is a liar, then lies or denies seeing anything that they really saw, the crime remains dark to the police. then the other witness begins to tell the truth and describe the suspect and tell what they saw and heard, this is shedding light on the crime. The police now have a chance of bringing in the thief because they were given truth. The witness now has shed light or truth on the crime. [Same thing]. Now justice can be done for the innocent involved as the victims.
So truth and light both reveal what is real or false, or what is bad or good. If you stumble your way into a dark room and there is a hole in the floor, that is a bad thing. Injury or death may occur, but if the light is turned on and you see the hole in the floor, that is good because you are now aware of the danger and can remain safe by going around the hole in the floor.
Jesus had brought us the exact same thing. He has revealed the truth directly from the Father to us to show us what will give us eternal life or what will send us into hell and not make it into life. It is up to each one of us to want to turn the light on so we come to the light- JESUS and confess our sins and turn our life over to Jesus by believing in Him. Look at the scripture again that I quoted at the beginning.
[JOHN 3:18,19] “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”
So here we can see that unbelief in Jesus can be just not wanting to come and confess your sins and repenting and receiving Jesus as your Lord to cleanse you of it. You want to remain in darkness. The Bible says then that you are already condemned because you do not want to come to the light. So as long as we practice and hide our sins from God or just ignore God’s truth about coming out of darkness into the light which then brings you to the savior, then that person is destined to be in Hell. Hell is a place of darkness and torment. and if a person wants to retain darkness and torment in their spirit and soul, you are destined to that kingdom. There are two kingdoms. Gods Kingdom of light and Satans kingdom of darkness.
Lets say that you are practicing fornication. Sleeping around with other people that are not married. This sin will put you in Hell. Read Galatians 5:19]. And let’s say that you stop this sin on your own and get married and never do it again. You are still in darkness. Why? The books of heaven record your daily activity. This sin is still in your past and has to be paid for. We are not able to cleanse ourselves or make ourselves Holy. An unclean thing cannot clean a dirty thing. Only a clean thing can make something dirty clean. If you have a dirty window you get a clean rag to clean it so you can make the window clean.
Jesus is clean and without sin, therefore He is the only one in God’s sight that can cleanse us and make us clean and make us ready for heaven. We are born into darkness and already condemned according to Galatians 3:18. God does not condemn innocent children and those he deems innocent, but for us who hear, we have an opportunity to receive the savior before it’s too late and escape the wrath that God will release on all sin.
So you don’t want to be caught with it living in darkness and hiding it. It will kill you. He loves all of us and is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance [2 PETER 3:9]. So Jesus is called the light because He brings the truth that manifests both what’s good and bad in mankind and what has to be corrected. So it goes back to your own personal will of, do you want to stay in darkness and keep your sins or do you want to come to the light and renounce them and begin to have a blessed life instead of a cursed one? Letting Jesus show you the way?
Lets go to the book of Matthew to see what Jesus is showing us to do.
The beginning of the new covenant. Jesus is 30 years old. He has spent most of His life in Israel and as He was growing up, He had to listen to Rabbi,s The Pharisees, and Sadducees. Pharisees claimed Mosaic authority for their interpretation of the Jewish laws. [Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, whereas the Pharisees did. The Sadducees also rejected the notion of Spirits or angels whereas the Pharisees acknowledged them. Jesus would have been listening to these men for years before He started His ministry at 30 years old. The Pharisees and Sadducees represented and lived in the old testament of Moses law that meant that the blood of animals is what covered their sin but never got rid of the sin within them. So all they were interested in was how well they knew the law of Moses, How well they performed it, and what they appeared to be on the outside, not what was on the inside of them. The blood of the animals did not take away sin but only covered it up.
So when Jesus started His ministry, He did not involve any of the teachers of the law of that time. God was doing a new work. So God started with John the Baptist. A man anointed by God Himself and a man raised up by God Himself to be a profit to Israel, John was to bear witness of the Messiah to come. John was born for this purpose and to preach repentance.
[Isaiah [40:3] The voice of one crying in the wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
So John the Baptist was called for this purpose. The common people of Israel recognized The call and anointing on John and came to Him confessing their sins and repenting of it even though he was not the Christ. Johnn was preaching repentance to Israel and they listened and did it.
1] First step. recognise your sin, confess it, get baptise in water if possible. A symbal of going down in your old life and coming up in a renewed life deicated to God.
2] This will bring you to Jesus. After you have come out of the darkness and into the light and recognize your sin and that you need for a savior, the next step is to make Jesus your Lord and saviour so you can be forgiven of all your past sins and start over again with Jesus who will give you a new life within.
3]After you have made Jesus Lord and are baptized in the Spirit. You will find that Satan will want to do battle with you in order to steal your salvation or keep you from growing in strength in the Lord. He will battle you with such things as your old habits, doubt, discouragement, pride, temptations of different kinds. enticements, and especially vein thoughts of the mind, about your past as well as false fears to stop you from moving forward with God. All designed to break you out of the will of God or to scare you into not moving forward in Him.
You will have to get the victory over these trials by looking to Jesus in you to give you the strength to say no to satans attacks and yes to God’s promises. Your faith will be put to the test. Jesus went through it in the Desert with Satan. Jesus is showing us exactly what to do. When you get saved.
Jesus was baptized by John because He was following His Father,s will and God told Him to. But He also did it for our sakes to show us- the future believers exactly what to do to fulfill all righteousness. When Jesus came to John to be baptized John tried to prevent Him because he knew there was no sin in Jesus. But Jesus said, “Permit it to be so now to fulfill all righteousness. [ Matthew 3:14,15] Jesus was demonstrating to us who need the baptism that He was totally endorsing and confirming everything John was doing.
Jesus is the head of the church, the leader of it, the instructor of it. He is the husband of the bride of Christ and as the husband, died for His bride and gave himself for her. He is the teacher of His bride, showing her the way to all righteousness to be in heaven with Him for eternity. We would have not known what to do to get into heaven if Jesus did not come to the earth and teach us and show us what to do.
God has an order. [1 Corinthians 11: 3,] “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ in God.”
So God has made an order in mankind. To drive my point home let,s go to [Genesis 2:15,25] “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the Garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
“And the Lord God said that it is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam’ there was not found a helper comparable to him.”
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said; This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of a man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
[GENESIS 3: 1,8] Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the tree of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ” you shall not eat it nor shall you touch it, lest you die.
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both of them were open , and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the Garden.” [NIV].
There are a great many lessons in Genesis but I want to stay on point. Adam was created first and then Eve. Eve was the helper of Adam. Adam was told by the Lord God that you may eat freely of every tree in the Garden but of the tree of good and evil you shall not eat, for, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So Adam alone was instructed directly by God to not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then God made Eve afterwards. God did not tell Eve, It was up to Adam to instruct his wife about God’s warning. So God had an order here of having the husband instruct the wife. The proof is in [GENESIS 3:17] “Then to Adam he said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat of it’; cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the day of your life.
By Adam heeding his wife it broke Gods order. Adam the beginning of mankind had complete fellowship with God. When the serpent talked to Eve he went after the weaker vessel. she was instructed by her husband because when the serpent was talking to her she quoted the command back to him. Adam with Eve were given dominion over the whole Earth. Eve had no business talking to the serpent. She was above him. Adam saw what was happening because he was right there.
Adam failed to stop his wife from talking to the serpent. The serpent had no business talking to them and Adam did not put it to a stop. The bible said Eve was deceived. Adam should have stopped his wife and cast out the serpent and enforced God,s #1 law, and establishing righteousness in his household. Instead, he agreed with his deceived wife, knowing what he was doing. So the devil deceived her with three temptations. They were- GENESIS 3:6, “So the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
These three temptations were;
1] LUST OF THE FLESH. The tree was good for food.
2] LUST OF THE EYE’S. It was pleasant to the eye’s.
3] PRIDE OF LIFE. desirable to make one wise.
These are the three areas that Satan will always tempt us in. Now notice that when Eve ate the fruit first that they were not found naked yet, the glory of God had not departed from them when Eve ate. But when she gave to Adam and he ate it, then the glory left them and they were found naked. Adam was her head. The bible says that Adam Rebelled. He knew very well what he was doing. Adam was more interested in being in unity with his deceived wife than staying in unity with God who gave him the world. God said to him in verse:
[Genesis 3:17, 18, 19] “Then to Adam, He said, ” because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it;
Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust, you shall return.”
Adam was not loyal to God and committed high treason against Him by listening to God’s enemy and legally handing the world to Satan by his obedience to him. So mankind obeyed a liar and deceiver and a murderer. We fell from unity with God. Satan then became the God of this world and we became his children. [2 Corinthians 4:4]
So the title of this blog is, “JESUS IS SHOWING US WHAT TO DO.
Let’s now go-ahead to the book of Matthew. The new covenant. The new testament. Jesus is called the second Adam. [1 Corinthians 15:45] And so it is written the first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. [Jesus]. Just as Adam was the beginning of the old testament, now Jesus starts His ministry as the beginning of the new testament. 1st Adam, Second Adam, Jesus.
We already covered why Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. After Jesus came out of the water.
[Matthew 3:16,17] When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold the heavens were open to Him, And He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
[Matthew 4: 1,11] Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now the tempter came to Him, and said, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ” man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
1] This is the temptation of, LUST OF THE FLESH.
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written; “He shall give His angels charge over you, and in their hands, they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, It is written again, ” You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”
2] This was the temptation of, THE PRIDE OF LIFE.
And again the devil took Him up to an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.”Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you satan for it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.
3] This temptation is, THE LUST OF THE EYE.
These are the exact same temptations of the garden of Eden but Jesus did not fail. There are some points I would like to make before this post is done.
1] When Jesus left the desert after defeating Satan, He walked out in power and He began His God given call. He had defeated His very own flesh. Satan could not get to him with his temptations because Jesus had the spiritual power to say no to His own flesh, So Jesus stayed in unity with God and walked out of the desert in power and Gods total favor.
2] Notice the Satan didn’t start tempting Jesus until He had stayed forty days and nights in the desert. by this time, Jesus was hungry, thirsty and tired. Satan likes to attack at the weakest point with the least resistance. Jesus still prevailed.
3] By Jesus coming into the world and then going to the desert to be tempted by the devil, He exposed Satan’s agenda and drew him out into the open to expose him. Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms of the world and their glory and said if you will worship me, all will be yours. this proves that Satan is the god of this Earth. Jesus did not say to him, no you are not!
4] This is what we will go through also. Jesus is leading us through it. We will repent of our sins, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Accept Jesus into our hearts by verbally asking Him into our hearts to be saved. Then the Holy Spirit will enter into us and give us a new heart. Then as we begin our life in Christ we will begin to be apposed by Satan in different ways and means, both in the mind and possibly physically. This will be our testing to make us strong. We will get the victory by the power of God and His word and walk out of the desert in the power of the Spirit to do our God given calls.
Faith becomes stronger as it is tested. How strong and skilled do you think an offensive line would be if it never had the opposing force of the defence to resist them. Their skills and strength would not develop. We will enter into Gods blessings as we do our best to follow Him. There will be times that we will fall to Satan’s devices but do not worry, just confess it to God and in His great mercy and love for you He will forgive. Then we just get up and go again. God keeps covenant. We cannot fail if we will stick with the savour.
God brings the things of Heaven to Earth. The prayer says, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. God is always working His will to be established on the earth and in man as it is in Heaven.
In the old testament, God’s counterpart was Moses. Jesus’ counterpart was Joshua. In the old testament, God lets us see things physically. Moses brought the law and sat face to face with God as a friend [Exodus 33:11]. God through Moses brought the law so that the people could understand the righteous requirements of God so that God could work with Israel. They were wild, used to being slaves, uneducated, scared. They needed to be loved and trained by God before they could enter into the promised land. Joshua was Moses’ assistant. He continually served Moses.
At the end of [Deuteronomy 34:4,5] Then the Lord said to him, [Moses] “This is the land of which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants. “I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there. So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the Land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.”
Moses did not enter the promised land because He represented the law. The law alone will not get us into Heaven. In the law, we are aware of our sin in us yet. By knowing the law we are now aware of the sin. But through faith in Jesus, we are delivered of the sin. This is why Joshua was necessary to represent the coming Jesus later who will lead us out of the desert of our sin and flesh and give us victory over satans temptations that keep us there.
Moses counterpart was God. Moses was someone who the people could see and touch, hear, and follow while Moses taught them. The God of mount Siani scared the people to death. They needed Moses, a physical man to go between God and them. We need Jesus to go between God and us.
Joshua’s job was to lead them into the promised land by the appointment of God. Not Moses. Joshua is the counterpart of Jesus. someone the people could both see and touch and hear with their ears and follow. This is a very large study that can go in different directions. So to stay on point, Jesus now takes us the believers, the new Israel, saves us, and cleanses us from our sin by receiving His own Spirit. and then lets us go through the test of fire to increase our faith and strengthen us and purify us while blessing our lives also. He will lead us each individually out of the desert and into power and answering our own personal calls on our lives. we will walk in victory. Joshua led the people of Israel out of the desert and into the promised land just as Jesus will do to each one of us.
Jesus requires faith in Him to follow Him. Joshua required faith also for the people to believe that Joshua was following Gods leading for them to follow him into the promised land. God gave Joshua signs and wonders to both verify Joshua to the people and to accomplish all God wanted to do by defeating the kingdoms of Cannan land, so Israel could finally occupie their own land and finally rest.
God gave Jesus signs and wonders to verify His call in front of the people that He was there because God had sent Him. By seeing the miracles the people would now listen to His message, although many believed in Jesus also when they did not see Him do a miracle yet.
Remember that God took the rib out of Adam and He created Eve with it. So Eve came out of the body of Adam.
Adam said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man [Genesis 2:23]
Jesus is the second Adam and we the believers are the second Eve. Jesus’ rib to us is Him sending us His Holy Spirit to live in us, the same as Him. We then are in Him and He in us. We share the same Spirit. [John 17: 23] Jesus praying to His Father said, “I in them and You in me that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent Me, and have loved them as you have loved me.
Unlike the first Adam and Eve, Now God has a new Adam who will not break fellowship with Him ever and betray Him and love’s God with all His heart. This is His Son, Jesus.
The second Eve we the believers will not disrespect our husband, will not usurp His authority, or Dishonor God. And if we get out of line Jesus will lovingly bring us back into the will of the Father.
Begin to search for Him and you will find Him. [Romans 10:13,15] For who ever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” How then shall they call on Him of whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?
Thank you for reading the blog. I pray it gives you understanding toward your salvation and to clear up some questions. God bless you and grant your heart be opened to receive Your new Spirit from God in Jesus name.