“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.” (Matthew 24:23) Jesus said this when asked about the end times. Whether we are close to the end times or not, there is still abundant wisdom in the words of our Lord, right now, today. For today, people are running after false Christs.
False Christs
I used to enjoy SciFi stories but have you noticed that modern SciFi books and movies are always about dystopian societies filled with despair, deceit, and death? Then a “savior” comes, a hero that rises above the chaos and injustice, a hero that defeats the villains and restores order for the remnants that survived.
Or, instead of SciFi, consider sports. Super Bowl Sunday has been elevated to a holiday more significant than Easter, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July, all rolled into one. The NFL could easily have been the inspiration for the Hunger Games. Think about it. Teams fighting teams with exceptional athletes elevated above mere humanity, all fighting to be the one standing when the dust settles.
I could go on. We do this with so many political candidates and elected politicians as if they wore suits of armor, jousted, and fought with swords all for the sake of the poor and oppressed. We place our hope in crafted personalities to save us.
The True Christ
Well, I’ve got Good News. Don’t escape into SciFi, don’t live vicariously through sports, don’t place your hope for peace in politicians. They will all fail us. They have no superhuman abilities. They are as powerless and weak as any child of Adam, for all false Christs are poor imitations of Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed, the Son of God.
Jesus is the only Savior. He died and rose from His grave. Christ paid the price for our sins and now sits at the right hand of the Father, mediating for His own. Jesus is what we all long for in our hearts. He fills the void we try to fill by running to false religions, seeking deceptive wealth, immersing ourselves in worlds created by the minds of mortal men, all of which are deceptions (Matthew 24:24).
Our Hope
Jesus will return; however, He is accessible right now. He’s a prayer away. He provides the only real way to salvation. And for His believers, we receive the Holy Spirit as God’s seal (Ephesians 1:13) certifying our salvation, paid for by the blood of the true Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, who will return at the Father’s appointed time (Matthew 24:36).
Photo by TK Hammonds on Unsplash
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https://rockexcavationservice.org/2019/05/05/just-the-way-jesus-is/