SEEK TO KNOW HIM

David knew the love of God. He said in Psalm 131, “Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too difficult for me to understand. Instead, I am calm and at peace like a weaned child with its mother. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord— now and forever.” It is one of the most beautiful statements in the Bible.

Here is someone who knows that there are things he will never understand about God. God does not owe him any explanations. He is not concerned with understanding mysteries or figuring out great Bible doctrines. He is concerned with pleasing the Lord and loving Him. Study the life of those who were close to the Lord throughout the Bible. They were focused on loving Him, not understanding Him.

It is the relationship that God seeks. Paul labored for the Lord unceasingly. And yet, his desire was to know Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10). He did not need to know all of the answers.

Do not spend your time trying to “figure things out.” Spend your time seeking to know Christ. To know Him better as a person. To grasp His love more fully so that His love will grasp your heart more tightly. Do everything you do for Him, to know Him better and to love Him more.

Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH ABOUT HELL?

What is the “proper” punishment for sin against Almighty God? It does not matter what we “feel” the punishment is or should be. All that matters is what God has said. Because you and I are sinners, we do not understand the depths of sin’s horrific nature. But a holy God can tell us exactly how bad sin is. As can the only perfect man who ever lived dying on Cross.

The Bible teaches that “hell”—whether that is the best word to use or not, people understand what you are talking about—is the punishment for sins. The wrath of God is found in the eternal nature of His divine punishment. More than anything else, hell is about separation from God for all eternity. And that is something that no one wants to experience whether they think they do or not.

No one understands everything the Bible teaches about hell. Exactly what it will be like is beyond the scope of our current human ability to understand. All sorts of theories and ideas and different interpretations abound in the religious world, but that just demonstrates that certain aspects of this topic are confusing and difficult. It does not do away with the doctrine itself. As with any other “controversial” Bible topic, the point is clearly seen by anyone willing to examine what the Bible teaches.

Whether or not the topic is difficult or comfortable to us is irrelevant. The Bible teaches hell as a fact, as a reality. Jesus said more about hell than anyone else in the Bible, and He did so in very vivid and descriptive terms. He said it is a place where there is “unquenchable fire” where “their worm does not die” (Mark 9:43-48). He also said that hell is a place of “outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).

The reality behind the figures of speech has to be worse than the figures themselves used to describe it. There can be no disagreement or debate over the fact that Jesus described hell as reality and as something more terrible than we can imagine.

The just punishment of God is difficult for sinners to embrace. The wrath of God is not something that is popular to preach. “God is love” (1 John 4:7) people love to say, and that is true. But love is not God. God must define love. And He defines it as giving His Son to die for us to keep us from perishing in hell (John 3:16).

Those who have rebelled against God and rejected His free offer of salvation will wind up in hell, but that is not what God desires. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that God created people to be lost. He created us for fellowship and desires that eternal fellowship so much that He gave His Son to die for us, proving His love (Romans 5:8). The love of God cannot be defined without the wrath of God, because the love of God is shown by the death of Christ. But why did Christ have to die for us? The short answer is to keep us out of hell.

God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:32). There will be no pleasure for God in the destiny of those who reject Jesus Christ. He delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18-19). He is in the saving business. Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). While that truth logically implies that everyone without Jesus is lost—on their way to hell—it also means that is not what God wants for you. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). We were “condemned already” (v. 18) because of our sins and our rejection of Christ. But by His grace, we can be saved by trusting in Christ as our Lord and Savior (Ephesians 2:8–9).

To ignore or explain away what the Bible teaches about hell is to make a mockery of the Gospel. The Gospel teaches that Jesus died for us. Without the bad news of hell and condemnation, there would be no need for the good news of life and salvation. You cannot accept what the Bible teaches about heaven without also accepting what it teaches about hell. Understand everything about hell? No one does. Know that the Bible warns repeatedly about what being lost will be like and how we do not want to go to hell? Absolutely. That is the truth. Jesus came to rescue us from hell.

So the doctrine of hell highlights both the holiness and love of God. The cross of Jesus is where these two things meet, where His wrath and His mercy intersect for the salvation of sinners. We do not have to go to hell. We can trust in Jesus and be saved forever (Matthew 25:46).

Some scholars believe that hell is not the eternal, conscious “torture chamber,” as they call it, that theologians have often made it out to be. Maybe they are right, but that is not what is important. What is important is the reality that the perfect Son of God gave Himself to die for us, as a sacrifice for our sins, to save us from something that is so horrible that human words can not fully describe it. Whatever hell is, you do not want any part of it. And you don’t have to go there because Jesus died to save you. Trust in Christ and get your life right with God through Him.

     Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

CHRIST LIVES IN YOU

The Gospel message of redemption through Jesus Christ teaches us that the Son of God became human in order to live and die for us. But it also teaches that because of His perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection from the tomb, Christ comes to live in us. This is the greatest truth one can ever embrace. Jesus came to live as a human on this earth so that He could live within the hearts and lives of His people in an intimate, abiding, personal relationship.

By trusting in the crucifixion of our Lord, we are “crucified with” Him (Gal. 2:20). This means that the “former” us is no more. All of our sins are gone, and the sinful person that abides within us has lost control over our lives. Christ now rules and reigns supreme. A new way of life has taken over because Christ lives within us (Galatians 2:20).

The great “mystery” that was concealed in the Old Testament but has been revealed in the New Testament is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And this Gospel means “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). We now “stand” in a state of grace (Rom. 5:2). Our life has a power it has never had before. Rather than the power of sin controlling us, the power of God and His grace through Christ abides in us.

The matchless wonder of what our Lord has done for us and in us means that we become the “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). This is an astonishing truth. Our sins once separated us from God and made us His enemies. Now He lives within us. This work of Christ on our behalf, and His presence within us, makes us completely new people, so that nothing in the past matters (2 Cor. 5:17).

Because the Spirit of Christ now resides within us, we are promised that He will give life to our bodies (Romans 8:10-11). We are now able to live a life of love for Christ and others. He has freed us from the bondage of sin to live His glorious resurrection life through us.

None of this has to be understood fully in order to be appreciated. Trust Him and love Him, knowing that He is an ever-present reality in your life. Christ lives in you.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

WHY DO WE WORSHIP?

When many believers think about “worship,” they think about prescribed rituals that a group of believers goes through on Sunday. But the doctrine of worship in the Bible is far more glorious and requires a much greater dedication than just this.

Worship is a life lived in creaturely dependence upon the God who created us. It is recognizing and appreciating and acknowledging who God is, and who we are as His people. It is giving God the glory and honor that is due Him.

God is our Creator, and honoring Him as such is where worship begins (Revelation 4:11). We affirm our belief in the reality of God by surrendering our lives to Him and recognizing that if we are created beings—and there is no “if” about that—then we owe all our allegiance to Him.

In Christ, we seek to honor God as our Redeemer (Isaiah 43:1) and King (Psalm 95:6). We owe our existence and our salvation to Him alone. Those who trust in Christ are the saved people of God because of the work of Jesus Christ. Worship is acknowledging that.

Three things must be present for “true worship” (John 4:23:24) to take place:

First, there must be love for Christ in our hearts (Mark 12:30). When we exalt Christ in our hearts in recognition of how wonderful He is, love for Him grows. By focusing on how much He loved us first, our love for Him grows (1 John 4:19). We will worship and serve Him when we truly love Him. And we will truly love Him when we accept the reality of His infinite love for us.

Second, we must be willing to obey the Lord we claim to love (John 14:15). Love for Jesus is shown by a changed life. We simply do not love Him if we do not commit our lives to serving Him. It is when we recognize that He is the sovereign Lord and Ruler of the universe that we will accept Him as the ruler in our lives. And we will always strive to do what He says.

How could we not worship the King of the universe? Especially considering how He loves us. And how could we refuse to serve Him—which is what worship ultimately is—when we consider that He came to serve us and to give His life for us (Matt. 20:28).

Third, every aspect of our lives must be “offered to God” as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). In the Bible, sacrifice is worship. But we are not called to offer animal sacrifices or any kind of literal sacrifices that require death. Jesus has already sacrificed Himself for our sins (Ephesians 5:2). His death was the only death required.

Jesus said that worship must be “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24), which means that the sacrifices and worship ceremonies of the Old Testament were types and shadows of what we are to do in Christ.

Worship is not about external rules and rituals. It is about a heart and life of praising God that surrenders to Him both in worship acts—like singing and praise and, most importantly, dedicating our entire lives to Him. The “worship service” that God wants is a life of service in His name. That will include what we think of as “acts of worship”—singing, taking communion, praying. But all will be within the freedom of a life lived completely for Him.

    Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

“THE ANTICHRIST”

Understanding certain parts of the Bible can be a difficult endeavor. But it is the opinion of this writer that the Bible is not nearly as difficult to understand as people make it out to be. By keeping statements and verses in their context, and remembering the overall context of the New Testament as it was written in the first century, will help one immensely in not only having a better knowledge of what is said, but a better awareness of what is NOT said. It will guard us against the tendency to read things into the Bible that WERE not there and therefore ARE not there. The text cannot mean now what it did not mean when it was written. That is a good rule of interpretation to remember.

What the Bible teaches about “last things,” or “end times,” or “tribulation” or “antichrists” would not be nearly as confusing if they were kept in their proper first century context. We can do better about understanding the Bible, and especially about the way we present its teaching to others.

This constant predicting the future based on “Bible prophecy” where the predictions of the those who claim to have figured out a prophecy puzzle are wrong must stop. This makes the cause of Christ look very silly, and it is totally wrong. Again, we can do better.

Much of what the Bible teaches about “the end” had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. At the same time, there are some things in the Bible that have yet to be fulfilled—namely, the bodily return of Jesus and the final judgment. But the “final coming” of Christ, literally in the clouds, is the only Bible prophecy left to be fulfilled and the only thing for which we are waiting.

What the Bible teaches about “the antichrist,” for example, does not have reference to one person still to come in the future. It has nothing to do with a world leader that will accomplish this or that in the coming days. It was rather a first-century phenomenon. What the Bible teaches about the antichrist had reference to the ungodly opposition to the Gospel that was present then. Antichrist was a systemic and concentrated opposition to the teaching that Jesus is Lord and Christ.

With all that is said and taught about “the Antichrist,” and with all of the questions that people ask about it, you would think that the Bible talks about it constantly. The reality is, however, that the term “antichrist” only appears in the apostle John’s short epistles.

In 1 John 2:18, John wrote, “Little children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have already come. By this we know that it is the last hour.” There are many things to learn from this statement, the two main ones being the following.

First, this is definitely not a single individual who will appear at the literal end of time. It was already “the last hour” when John wrote that many antichrists had already come. So this is not a global evil leader of some kind coming in the future even now in 2025.

Second, we learn that there were already many “antichrists” who were working their nefarious schemes in the early church at the time John wrote this letter. The epistle of 1st John was written to people in the first century, not directly to us.

So what was this “antichrist” doctrine all about? Well, John actually defines it for us. “Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ” is antichrist (1 John 2:22). The prefix “anti” means against, so whoever is against Christ is antichrist.

“For many deceivers are presently at work in the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Such a person is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7). Antichrists were already at work in the world in the first century. And it is clear that John was dealing with a specific kind of false doctrine that had to do with Jesus being human, God in the flesh.

We don’t know everything about the false doctrines that John was opposing, but we see easily the point. Some were denying that Jesus was who He claimed to be, and John was fighting that. Anyone who did the same thing today would be antichrist and we would fight against their doctrine.

So John was clearly talking about a system of unbelief and the collective work of some who were denying central parts of the Gospel. He was not speaking of political figures in his own day, much less one worldly political leader 2,000 years away in the future.

If this is the correct interpretation, then that would mean that other figures referred to in the New Testament would also have likely been descriptions and warnings for the people to whom they were written. The “Beast” in Revelation 13, for instance, referred to the Roman empire—and Nero Caesar specifically—and its persecution of Christians in the first century. Because of the brutality of the Roman Empire’s persecution of Christianity, it and its leader would have been perfectly symbolized by a beast working by the power of the devil.

Likewise, Paul’s “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 had reference to something in the first century. Paul wrote that this person “exalts himself against every so-called god or thing that is worshipped,” and that the “spirit” of this man was already at work but being restrained back then (2 Thessalonians 2:6–7).

So the doctrine that “the Antichrist” has not come yet, but is still some future “global bad guy” who will come to power during a “seven year great tribulation” is not in harmony with what the Bible teaches. Since the introduction of dispensationalism into Christian thought in the mid-19th century, people have been looking out for and “identifying” the Antichrist (Hitler or Mussolini or a U.S. president that they do not like, as examples). Brothers and sisters, they are always wrong because these things were not at all in the mind of John in the first century.

Any system, doctrine or teacher who opposes Christ is the spirit of antichrist. Therefore, antichristism is an ongoing reality. Every generation will face those who oppose who Christ is and what He means to the world. And like John did, we must oppose them with the true Gospel of Jesus.

This interpretation fits with the context of John’s writing. For example, he says in 1 John 4:3, “Every spirit that confesses not Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is already in the world.” There is nothing here about a single person rising in the last days of time, but about the constant threat of false teaching concerning Jesus that must be opposed by every generation.

So the Bible’s teaching about the antichrist is much simpler than the fantastic speculations of modern day “prophecy experts.” These things just lead to confusion and more confusion as well as false “prophecies.” What the Bible teaches about the antichrist simply references those who would participate in false doctrine concerning our Lord Jesus Christ or lead others away from their focus on and worship of Him.

There is no doctrine of “the” Antichrist in the Bible. Instead, our focus should be on what is said about remaining in the truth of Christ (1 John 2:24) and testing doctrines by comparing them with the Word of God (1 John 4:1). We should focus on living for, loving, preaching and teaching Jesus and stop talking about “the Antichrist.”

This interpretation may not be as “exciting” to the flesh as the “left behind” folly, but it is more firmly grounded in the stable doctrine of Christ as revealed in the Bible.

       Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

CHRIST THE BRANCH

Jesus is referred to as many things in the Bible, employing different metaphors to emphasize different aspects of His life and work. He is our wonderful friend and Savior Jesus.

One can study and meditate on Him and His work for us for the rest of their life and never fully exhaust all there is to know. To know Him better is to love Him more. We strive to learn more about Him because it helps us to love Him and serve Him and appreciate Him. And this is what life is all about: loving Jesus.

In the Old Testament there are prophecies concerning Jesus that refer to Him as “The Branch.” As with all direct references to Jesus in the Bible, The Branch highlights many wonderful things about our Lord. Let us consider this and see what we can learn.

The Old Testament predicted that Jesus would come and bring hope and restoration to the spirits and lives of God’s people. Jesus would be God’s Messiah—Hebrew for “anointed one,” equivalent to the Greek word Christ.

Zachariah, Isaiah and Jeremiah all employed this description of The Branch to refer to the coming anointed one of God whom we know as Jesus Christ.

The Branch refers to a new king whom God would raise up to reign and rule over His people. God would put life into the seemingly lifeless stump of the royal line of David and bring into the world the greatest and most significant man who ever lived.

All of the prophecies surrounding this Branch refer to aspects of the great work of Christ on our behalf. The entire Bible is about Jesus and we learn many things from the Old Testament about Him and His work.

The Branch prophecies pointed to the true and real fulfillment of God’s covenant promises made to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). They also spoke of a king from the lineage of David and His rule in the kingdom of God. They prophesied the fact that this Branch would cleanse the people of God from their sins forever. And that He would be the one to build the real “Temple of God” which would be a spiritual temple. We know it today as the body of Christ, the church.

A branch seems like a lowly and insignificant thing. And a branch coming from the root of Jesse, the father of King David, would have been, from a human standpoint, an unusual way to speak of the most important person to ever live on this planet.

But God does not see things from a human standpoint. And Jesus’s rise from the line of David as the Branch makes us aware of the humility He took upon Himself to come into this world as a lowly servant who rose to be glorified at the right hand of God because of the perfect work which He did.

The prophecies of God’s Branch, Jesus Christ, coming into the world seem to always occur when the people of God were at their lowest point. Which means that the Son of God is the message of hope for the world.

Christ is hope personified. And it is when we are at our lowest, in the darkness and valleys of life, that He comes to us, bringing not only salvation when we repent of our sins with a contrite heart, but also an abundant life lived in close fellowship and communion with our God.

Isaiah said, “A branch will come up from the stump of Jesse.” A living organism would grow out of a stump that was dead. The Spirit of the Lord would be upon this Branch (Isa. 11:1-2). God “quickens the dead and calls those things that be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17)—bringing life from death, in other words. He has made us alive in Christ, even though we were dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1).

Jeremiah prophesied of a “righteous Branch” who would be a descendent of David and always do what is right on the earth (Jer. 33:15). To people living amid the horrors of exile, this came as a most refreshing reassurance that God’s promise to develop a king from the line of David (2 Sam. 7:12-16) had not been forgotten. God never fails to keep His promises. No matter how things appeared, those promises would “sprout up” in the person of the Messiah.

And no matter how things appear in our lives, no matter how dark the journey might get, the promises of God are always still in effect. God is always with us because Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). The presence and power of God are always close to us because of Christ.

All of the kings and priests in the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. They were types of Christ.  Zechariah the prophet made this known when he described the coming Messiah as “the Branch.” His prophecy spoke to the fact that Jesus would be our King and our Priest in the same person at the same time.

In Zechariah 6:12–13, God promised through the prophet that “the one whose name is the Branch” would “construct the temple of the Lord” and “possess the honor of royalty.” This is fulfilled in Jesus completely and finally.

Christ is the Priest who represents us and He is the King who rules and reigns in our hearts. Because He did “what was right on the earth,” living a perfectly sinless life, He can represent us to the Father as our Priest (Heb. 4:14-16), and represent the Father to us as our King (Rev. 1:5; 1 Tim. 6:15). He is the “one mediator between God and man” (1 Timothy 2:5).

The Temple of God had reference to the saved people in the Body of Christ. We know this because this is how the New Testament interprets prophecies such as these (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). The “building” of God is the church (1 Cor. 3:9; 1 Peter. 2:5). Zachariah was talking about a spiritual temple, which is far more glorious, important and impressive than any physical edifice could ever be.

When we consider the bottom line to these prophecies of Jesus as The Branch, we see that they were foretelling the humanity and divinity of Christ Jesus. These references are fulfilled in the fact that “God became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). Everything pointed to Jesus and everything is fulfilled in Jesus. Because Jesus is everything!

Because Jesus is an actual human descendent from King David, He is called the “Branch from the root of Jesse.” But Isaiah calls Him “the Branch of the Lord” (Isa. 4:2) because He is the eternal God. He is human and divine. He is God in a human body.

All of this is important because the work of Christ was to redeem humanity from our sins and to bring God near to us. So near that, he can actually dwell in us as his temple. He bore our sins in his own body on the cross first Peter 2:24 to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18).

What the message of Jesus as The Branch will always refer to is the fact that God comes to us when we do not deserve it. He comes to us when we are down and out. He brings us spiritual life when we are spiritually dead. He rescues us from condemnation. Jesus, the Branch of the Lord, has done everything for us.

     Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

IS HE JESUS OR IS HE CHRIST?

Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Is that His name? Is that His title? Is Christ His last name and Jesus His first name? Is He Jesus or is He Christ? And why do we sometimes say Jesus and sometimes say Christ? What is the difference?

These are important questions because they speak to the identity of our Lord and Savior. We learn more about who He is by considering questions such as these, and anything that helps us to learn about Jesus is a good thing.

First, it should be recognized that “Jesus” is His name. The emphasis here is on the fact that He lived a human life on this earth. Therefore, He had a human name. The name Jesus was highly significant in His case because it means Savior (Matt. 1:21).

But the name itself, regardless of its meaning, was a very common name during the time that Jesus lived. So while He was named Jesus because He is the Savior, it was generally “just another name” because He was a real human being. Human beings have human names.

The word “Christ” is not a name, it is a title. So, no, Christ is not His last name. It is His title. That is why, in the Bible, you will see Him being called both Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. Christ means “anointed one,” and it speaks of His divinity. It speaks of His divine mission into the world, and the fact that He alone glorified God and pleased God with the way that He lived in perfection here on this earth.

The Bible writers tie the two words together because of their mutual importance. The New Testament opens with a reference to “Jesus Christ” (Matthew 1:1). The Gospel of John reveals, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). So being “Christ” is equivalent to being the “Son of God,” and “Jesus” is Him.

One way to think of it is to see that Jesus means He is human, Christ means He is God. The God-Man. The apostle Paul states that “there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There has never been anyone like Him.

He was named Jesus by God and He was anointed Christ by God. Peter preached, “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Calling Him Jesus is respectful and it is right. There is nothing disrespectful about calling our Lord by His human name. It serves as a constant reminder of and celebration of the fact that God became flesh and lived among us in order to die on the cross for our sins. What theologians call the “incarnation” happened because God became human. A human named Jesus.

Calling Him Christ reminds us that He is what the entire universe is all about. Some claim that one solitary man cannot be the adequate explanation for the existence of the universe. But they fail to understand the importance and significance of this “one solitary man.” This is the God who created the universe. God the Father created the world through Jesus Christ (John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:10; Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16).

Christ is Savior, Lord, King, and the one who has been anointed by God to be the  “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). In Christ, we have a Savior who brings about redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins (Ephesians 1:7). He is both Jesus and Christ. He is Jesus Christ. He is Christ Jesus. He is God in human form. He is the God-Man.

He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem’s manger and He is also the eternal I AM—the Lord God Jehovah. This is the greatest and most significant person who ever lived. Like the Roman soldier said as Jesus died, “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54).

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS THE BREAD OF LIFE

“I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

Jesus left no doubt about who He is and what He means to the world. He taught that He is the answer to the mysteries of life. And He used many metaphors to do so. One of them is that He is the “bread of life.” What does this mean?

One of Jesus’s most notable miracles was when He fed five thousand people with but five loaves and two fish. His miracles were done to prove His divinity, to prove that He was and is the Son of God and that He is the Savior of the world. They demonstrate that He is the answer, the one thing that we are seeking. We find what we need in Jesus the way that a starving person finds what he is seeking in bread.

After Jesus performed the miracle and gave the multitudes a free meal, they sought more from Him. But their minds were on the temporary and the physical rather than the spiritual and eternal. They wanted Him to provide more physical food, in other words. And that is why many of them were following Him. They saw Him as a “miracle worker” rather than as the Son of God—the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). While He did work miracles, that was not His purpose for entering the world.

Jesus knew what was in their hearts and where their priorities were. And He used the opportunity to teach them an eternal truth about God the Father and Himself. His unique role in the world was not about earthly, temporary needs and concerns. Anything that concerns us does concern Him, but ultimately His mission was a spiritual one (Lk. 4:18; John 3:16; 4:24).

What Jesus offers to humanity is worth more than all of the bread in the world. It is worth more than all the money or health or fame in the world. He offers us eternal life, salvation from our sins. We have a void and a need that only Jesus can fill.

Anything you try to fill the God-shaped void in your life with other than Christ will never bring lasting fulfillment. There is no lasting joy or happiness outside of Christ. Only He can give you what you seek—what your heart desires and what your soul needs.

When Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life, He was revealing that everything in the Bible and everything that has happened in history is about Him. Everything in the Bible is about Jesus in some way. This is true of the story of God feeding His people miraculously with bread from heaven while they were in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4-35). He sustained them daily as a picture of the fulfillment and spiritual sustenance that Jesus provides to His people today.

God sustained physical life among His people for forty years with literal bread from heaven, but the people who ate it still eventually died (John 6:49). Nothing in this world lasts forever, except a relationship with Jesus.

This is Christ’s point about eternal life. The “bread” that He offers is lasting and eternal. It means salvation for the soul. If you “eat” this “bread” you will never die in the absolute sense. The temporary nature of life means your body will die, but your spirit will go to live with Jesus forever if you feed on Him as your Lord and Savior (John 6:51).

Just as physical food is required to sustain us physically, fellowship with Jesus and trust in Him is required to sustain us spiritually. There is no physical life without food and there is no spiritual life without Christ. Feed on Him daily by faith in and love for Him.

The spiritual nourishment that we need is found by making a decision. If you were physically hungry and someone offered you bread, you would have to make the decision to accept it and eat it. God knows that we are spiritually starving and He has provided the solution. He freely offers the Bread of Life to all who will receive it. Accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus. The choice is yours. Take Christ as your Lord and Savior by a deliberate act of your will.

To trust in Christ and love Him means to put Him first in our lives, trusting Him alone to save us and living to please Him.

Jesus comes to give us abundant life (John 10:10), so we must cease trying to fulfill the longing of our heart and the needs of our soul with temporary, fleeting experiences and things. Jesus is the only way and the only answer.

You never have to search for spiritual bread again when you take Christ. His love for you and His life within you will take away your spiritual hunger forever. You will find the lasting fulfillment that you need. All you have to do is come to Him (Matthew 11:28). At the table of Christ, an endless supply of spiritual nourishment is available. Keep your focus on Jesus.

Any spiritual emptiness that you feel in your life is the result of not having a serious and focused relationship with God. You were created for God. You answer to your Creator as a created being. Live for Him and love Him through the wonderful gift of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the source of life and everything in it. Embrace Him and rejoice that in Him you have all that you need both now and forever.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS THE SON MAN

What does it mean that Jesus is the “Son of Man”? That is the description that He used to refer to Himself the most. Far more than any other title, in fact.

While there is much that we likely do not understand for sure, we can say with certainty that it has to do with His humanity and His deity. The humility of Jesus, and yet His supreme authority, are both important parts of understanding the title, “Son of Man.”

Jesus was the most real human being who ever lived. That is because He is the only one who ever lived a perfect human life. He is the only one who ever “got it right” when it comes to living the way that God intended for humanity to live.

No one understands more about human life, and the suffering thereof, than Jesus Christ. Not you, not me, not anyone. We know a lot, but not nearly as much as He. When it comes to the sufferings and difficulties of being human on this earth, no one knows as much about it as Jesus.

Consider, for example, that He was “tempted in all points like we are” but He never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). The rest of us have given into temptation, but He never did. That is why the Bible says that He “suffered being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

When you are tempted in every way, and yet you never once give into the temptation, that is a type of suffering that only Jesus can understand. Only Jesus can understand how difficult temptation is for humanity in an absolute sense. Those of us who have given in to it could never know as much as He does. And He does not just know it because He is omniscient. He knows it firsthand, by experience.

We see the Lord‘s great humility when He said, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). We see His great friendship and love when we learn that the “Son of Man” is the “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19).

We see His humility in His great concern for the eternal welfare of others when He said, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He understands every part of human suffering. When we are tempted to complain to God about the suffering in this world, let us remember what our Lord said: “The Son of Man” was “delivered into the hands of men” who murdered Him (Matthew 17:22).

There are simply no adequate words in any human language to sufficiently describe the majesty and beauty of our Lord. The love and compassion of Christ in humbling Himself to become human (Philippians 2:8) is the definition of sacrificial love and concern.

To comprehend some of the depth of meaning behind Jesus referring to Himself as the “Son of Man,” we need to carefully consider a prophecy from the Old Testament Book of Daniel. In Daniel 7:13-14, we read where “one like a Son of Man” comes before the “Ancient of Days” from whom He receives, in obvious approval and appreciation, a kingdom of “authority and glory.”

The Ancient of Days was a divine being, but the Son of Man was, as well. This prophecy obviously has reference to Jesus coming into heaven after He made atonement for the sins of humanity and received the eternal kingdom, which is the body of Christ, the saved of all the earth (Hebrews 9:12, 24-28). The Ancient of Days, then, was God the Father and the Son of Man was Jesus after His ascension into heaven.

In His trial before the High Priest, Jesus tied this ancient prophecy to Himself when He said, “Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). The religious leaders understood what He was claiming, that He was the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy and therefore was a divine being. This is why they accused Him of blasphemy (v. 65).

Jesus’s divinity is further revealed by the fact that He had the authority to forgive sins. “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matthew 9:6). He also said “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), revealing that as the one who gave the Sabbath law, He could make exceptions to it.

The divinity of Jesus is revealed in the fact that God became flesh to die for us (John 1:1, 14). Indeed, the Son of Man came to “give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Jesus also predicted His resurrection from the dead as the Son of Man (Mark 9:31).

The Son of Man has ascended to the right hand of God to rule and reign in His kingdom. The church’s first martyr, Stephen, beheld the glorified “Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). This points to His deity, His rule and reign over the people of God.

Ultimately Jesus will come again to judge the world. Only the “Son of Man” has the authority to do this. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on the throne of His glory” (Matthew 25:31).

So Jesus’s description as the Son of Man speaks of His humility, His humanity, His power, His authority, and the fact that He is God.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS THE SON OF GOD

When we think of the fact that God is a God of grace, mercy, and love, we need to see all of these things personified in Jesus Christ. He is the grace of God, the mercy of God, the salvation of God.

Jesus is the “Son of God,” which means that He is “God the Son.” He is as much God as God the Father. No one understands all of the mysteries of the Trinity, but we know that one God, the true God, consists of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14).

Jesus is the “Word of God” who was “with God in the beginning” (John 1:1, 2). Jesus is not a glorified angel. He is not a created being of any kind. He is the eternal God. He shares the same divine nature that His Father has.

God the Father, “who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets” now speaks to us through “His Son, whom He made heir of all things, and through whom He also made the worlds.” Jesus is the “brightness of His glory” and the “exact image of His person,” and He “upholds all things by the word of His power.” The Son of God also “purged our sins” and then “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3). All of these facts highlight the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the fact that He is the true and only Son of God.

Matthew’s Gospel begins with an affirmation concerning the deity of Christ. He quotes from Isaiah the prophet and applies it to Jesus, calling Him “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). God is with us because the Son of God/God the Son came to live among us as a human being.

Similarly, the apostle John opens his gospel by asserting, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Word of God is a reference to Jesus. He was with God and He was God. He was with God the Father and He was God Himself.

We know this because of verse 14 of John chapter 1: The Word became flesh and lived among us. Jesus did not “become” the Son of God. He “became” flesh and blood. He was not “created” to be the Son of God. He is eternal, as John reveals in the opening verse. The deity of Christ—the fact that He is the Son of God—is His nature and His being. It was not something given to Him.

He is equal with God the Father and has possessed all of the fullness of deity throughout all eternity. Paul wrote that Christ, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). He emptied Himself of His prerogatives of equality with the Father when He became a man, which means He possesses equality with God. There are mysteries here that we will never understand fully in this life, but that does not mean that we cannot know about these facts and appreciate them.

The entrance of God’s Son into the world is the very foundation of the Gospel. The most famous verse in the Bible makes this clear: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God gave whom? His Son. The very Son of God was given by God the Father to save us. And Jesus willingly came into the world to save us.

The Son of God is the perfect revelation of God the Father. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus said (John 14:9). Think about the truth behind that statement. If we want to know what God is like, then Jesus is where to look. He reveals everything about God that we need to know.

So the title “Son of God” does not speak of or point to a secondary role as far as His deity and eternality are concerned. On the contrary, it affirms His oneness with the Father, His equal deity, and His power and authority upon the earth. Indeed, He is what this world and all that is in it is all about.

The disciples who spent time with Him and knew Him best, knew who He was: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). To declare this of someone of whom it was not true would be blasphemy. But Jesus accepted the statement, and even expected it, because it is true.

To believe in the Son of God means to entrust your life to Him, to trust Him alone for your salvation, to exalt Him as Lord of your life, and to have peace and joy through that faith in Him (1 John 3:19-20). When you affirm that you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, which is the confession upon which salvation and being a part of the body of Christ are based, then you are saying “amen” to everything Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit claimed about Him.

        Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

THE ERROR OF “KING JAMES ONLY-ISM”

The only reason to study the Bible is to learn about Jesus. He is what the book is all about. We are not saved by “Bible knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:1-3). We are saved by knowing and loving Jesus. The Bible leads us to Christ if it is read correctly, but unfortunately, by many religious leaders, it is not read correctly or taught correctly (John 5:39).

Because reading the Bible in your own language and knowing its meaning is so important, it is important to deal with the errors of “KJV-onlyism.” There are those, in other words, who tell believers that the King James Version is the only “correct Bible.” That it and it alone is the inspired word of God. If that is true, I don’t know where that leaves non-English speaking countries or believers. But, of course, it is not true.

Knowing something about the errors in the King James Version will help one see that modern translations are the best way to go for most people. The KJV is one of the most inaccurate translations one will ever read. While you can certainly learn about Jesus and what to do to be saved from it, building your devotional life on such an antiquated and erroneous version is not the best idea. Our faith is in the inspired word of God in its original languages, not in any single English translation done by fallible men.

There is no doubt about the fact that tradition is strong when we talk about the KJV. It has a rich history and it is very poetic in places. It can be beautiful to read (the 23rd Psalm, for example). But as far as being accurate and the best translation for your daily use, it unfortunately falls way short.

If you disagree with that and decide to use it and continue to use it, that is certainly your choice. But new believers need to be told the truth: that modern translations are the way to go. And children and young people need to be able to read Bible versions they can understand. We do a great disservice to the cause of Christ when we exalt tradition over truth. Saying that “The King James Version is the best translation,” or worse, the “only real translation of God’s word” is simply not truth. The KJV is not even among the best translations available today.

The KJV was a product of its time, and that time has passed. Its translators used the best resources available to them at the time. But that was in the 17th-century. The fact is—and this may be painful for some to accept, but it is the truth—we have older and more reliable manuscripts available to us today than the King James translators had.

The older the manuscript, the more accurate it is going to be because it is closer to the time of the original writings. And so tremendous light has been shed on the text of the Word of God by the availability of better manuscripts than were available in King James’ day. They did the best they could with what they had, but what the modern translator has access to is far better.

Those who persist in asserting that the KJV is a perfect translation, free from error, when far more accurate texts are available to us today, are not as interested in truth as they claim to be. Anytime we elevate what we are comfortable with, our traditions, over reality and the truth, we make the same mistake as the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who elevated their traditions over the word of God (Mark 7:13).

Nothing should be more important to us than a pure and honest pursuit of what the Word of God actually says. Devotional study to know about Christ is best accomplished by reading a language with which one is familiar.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, for example, he did not write in language that was hundreds of years old. He wrote in the current language of the people. The Bible says of Jesus that the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12:37). Which means He was not speaking in an ancient language to them. He spoke in the language they knew. Any Bible translation today should do the same if it is going to do its job effectively.

And there is nothing “holier” about the King James Version just because it uses Shakespearian English. Shakespeare wrote, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?“ in his play, Romeo and Juliet. That is not holy language. That is the language of the 17th century in England.

When the KJV uses “thee” and “thine” instead of “you” and “yours,” it is not being “more respectful” to God. God does not expect us to address Him in an ancient language. In the KJV, Jesus says to Peter, “Thou art Peter,” (Matt. 16:18). He was not paying tribute to Peter by using those words of the King James language. What He said was the equivalent to “you are Peter.” And that is the way it should be translated today. There is no need to say, “incline thine ear” (Prov. 2:2) when you can and should say, “listen to my my words” in plain, every day, modern English.

The main problem with the KJV has to do with its source manuscripts, especially when it comes to the New Testament. What the KJV translated the New Testament from were a few late medieval texts. Since that time, scholars and students have discovered literally thousands of older and more trustworthy manuscripts, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. When people claim that the new translations “omit parts of the Word of God,” they are simply misguided in their conclusions. The reality is, the earlier manuscripts reveal that certain parts of the KJV text were almost certainly not a part of the original inspired writings but were added later by uninspired copyists.

The famous verses of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) were attached hundreds of years after the inspired text to assert the doctrine of the Trinity. Likewise, the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman (John 7:53-8:11) and the protracted ending of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) are not found in the oldest manuscripts. That does not mean that they definitely do not belong, but it does mean that their absence in the earliest texts should be acknowledged, which is what the modern translations do.

Making the reader aware of these textual differences does not equate to an assault on the reliability of the Scriptures. Rather, it means that we are serious about being true to what God has said.

Another point that should be painfully obvious to anyone who has spent time reading the KJV is that its outmoded expressions make understanding the Bible difficult for the modern reader. The King James Version translated its available texts into Early Modern English, something that is not even used in England anymore.

An extremely large amount of words used in the KJV have become obsolete or have had their meanings changed entirely in the last 400 some odd years. “Conversation” referred to the way one behaves overall rather than to spoken communication, which is what the word means today. “Let” meant “to restrain” rather than “to allow” like it does now. And statements like “we do you to wit” (2 Cor. 8:1, KJV) make absolutely no sense today. And many, many more examples of such could be given. A simple reading of a modern translation will clear things like this up.

While the King James is extremely poetic and beautiful in certain parts, and it is easy to see why people appreciate its poetic nature, this is simply no reason to use it as your only Bible—though it is still your choice—nor is it a reason to tell others that they should read from the King James Version—which is not your choice.

The language barriers of the KJV can make the Bible complicated and difficult to understand for the one seeking to learn about Jesus. And that is definitely not a good thing. People should not have to learn a new language in order to read the Word of God just because to read a modern translation is out of the comfort zone of certain people.

By using and recommending modern translations of the Word of God, we show that our desire is truly for the truth of God. It shows that we want everyone to understand God’s word, not just those who are familiar with 17th-century English.

Doing better and learning better by using better resources that were not available in times past does not reflect negatively on those who were faithful to God in former days who read the King James Version. It means that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to have the best understanding of what God has said that we can possibly have.

Our allegiance as believers is to Jesus and to the inspired Word of God as it was given by the Holy Spirit through the apostles and prophets of the first century. It is not to a particular English translation of the original writings.

When we employ modern translations, compare them, and make use of what modern scholarship has provided for us, we are centered on Christ and dedicated to having and maintaining the best awareness of the heart of the Gospel message that we can have.

Diligence to the truth means that we want to “present ourselves approved to God” (2 Tim. 2:15) by not rebuffing the acceleration of available tools that God has given us to know and follow His holy word.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS THE LOVER OF OUR SOUL

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) wrote the great hymn “Jesus Lover of My Soul” in 1740. It is a personal favorite because it speaks of the heart of Jesus and His overflowing love for sinners like me. He is truly the lover of your soul and mine.

Christ did not show His love for us just in flowery words, but in a supreme act of love in giving Himself to die for our sins. He does far more than just say, “I love you.” He proved it.

At the same time, we should live each day as though we are hearing Jesus say, “I love you” in our ear. Because He does. The Bible teaches that He loves us and what He did proves that He loves us. His concern for us in our lives right now proves that He still and will continue to love us.

Rather than allowing the influence of the devil or your own thoughts to cause you to think negatively about Jesus or to “hear” negative messages about how God feels about you, choose to believe that He loves you. Picture Him whispering in your ear that He loves you. Daily and constantly.

When we were the enemies of God, Jesus gave His life for us in a sacrificial love that is unlike anything that has ever happened in this world. The love of Christ truly passes our ability to understand it (Ephesians 3:19; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10). No one loves you like Jesus. No one has ever loved you like Jesus or ever will.

And you have never loved anyone the way Jesus loves you or the way that He loves them. There is simply no comparison to the love of Jesus. Earthly love between parents and children and spouses and friends can illustrate it, but they cannot compare to it.

Christ gave Himself in His own body on the cross to bear our sins in that body (1 Peter 2:24). The love of God shown through Christ proves that God is willing to give us anything and everything that we need (Romans 8:32).

The very foundation of life is Christ and His love. He cares about your eternal well-being and He cares about how you feel and He cares about the things going on in your life. He is truly the lover of your soul.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS IS LIFE

Being a Christian means being a disciple of Jesus Christ. It does not mean just holding correct theological beliefs. It is a radical surrender to Jesus in our hearts and lives. And when we make that kind of commitment to surrender ourselves to Him, He becomes our life. He is the very reason for our existence.

Jesus lives within us and is to live life through us. Through the presence of the Holy Spirit, Christ lives within us and gives life to our mortal bodies (Romans 8:10-11). He is not talking here about the bodily resurrection at the end of time. Those will be IMMORTAL bodies (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Our mortal bodies are what we live in now. And because Christ is in us (Galatians 2:20), we have life in Christ. Jesus means real living. One of the greatest verses in the New Testament is where Paul says that Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4).

There is no other way to the Father in heaven except through His Son Jesus Christ. And He gives eternal life to those who view Him as the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Christ GIVES life, and Christ IS life Himself. And those are two things that we must never forget or lose sight of.

John makes this statement: Whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11–12). We have life when we “have the Son.” This is a personal relationship with Him. When we choose Christ, when we choose to follow and love Him, we have eternal life. Without Him as the center of our life, we do not have life. So He gives life, but more than that, He IS life. Real life. Lasting life. Abundant life here (John 10:10). And eternal life in heaven.

Perhaps no greater statement has ever been made by a follower of Christ than this one: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). This is the perspective from which to view the world. This is the “correct” view of life on earth and everything about it.

Christ Himself is our reward. He is our salvation. He is our blessing. He is our Prophet, Priest and King. To us He is EVERYTHING.

So choosing to live for Christ becomes a life-changing event. Choosing to love Him and put Him in the proper place on the throne of our lives is truly what life on this earth is all about. It is all about Jesus Christ Himself.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD

The Bible teaches that when Jesus was raised from the dead, He ascended to heaven forty days thereafter. This is a source of great comfort and encouragement regarding the accuracy of the Scriptures and our personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself.

That He took His seat at the Father’s right hand in heaven when He ascended on high is a testament to the fact that His work was completed. The finished work of salvation allowed Him to “sit down” at the Father’s right hand (Hebrews 10:1-14). Jesus at the right hand of God speaks of His honor and His glory and His authority, as well as the fact that salvation is an accomplished mission.

Psalm 110:1 predicted the ascension of Jesus and His coronation at God’s right hand: “The LORD said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your foes a footstool for your feet.” The eternal purpose and plan of God concerning His accomplishments through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are tied to Jesus being seated at the right hand of the Father. The Bible makes continuous reference to this in that connection (Acts 2:33-36; Hebrews 1:3).

Why is He seated at the right hand of God? What is He doing? He is representing a finished salvation and serving as our advocate (1 John 2:1). “Christ Jesus who died—and more than that, was also raised back to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).

What does it mean that Jesus is our intercessor and advocate? We don’t fully know. I don’t have to know and understand everything about what He is doing to know that He is doing it for me, for my well-being and on my behalf. And I can praise Him for it and be thankful for it, lack of understanding not withstanding.

This is a continual act of Christ on my behalf. And I am thankful for it.

Everything Jesus does, He does because He loves me and saves me. That’s the way we should view it.

All of us go through periods where we are not as strong in the faith as we would like to be or need to be. There are times of struggle, depression, loneliness, temptation, and all of these things war against us. But even when we sin, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

Because I have a friend in heaven, who represents me and did everything for me, I have confidence to approach God’s throne to find the grace and mercy I need in my daily life (Hebrews 4:14-16).

When we read about the “right hand of God,” we should immediately be mindful that it is a place of superiority, a place of honor and glory, and represents the finished work of salvation, as well as Christ’s ultimate victory over all of His enemies, and therefore over all of our enemies (Mark 16:19; Colossians 3:1).

When we think of Jesus at the right hand of God, we should also think of the word exaltation. Christ has been exalted above everything else. We know that the victory He accomplished at the cross was completely successful, and we also have the assurance that He will return from that exalted position to come and let us share in His glory when He comes again.

God “raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority” (Ephesians 1:20-22). All things have been placed under the feet of Jesus, signified by His rule at God’s right hand, meaning that He is what the universe and all that is in it is all about.

Jesus is what life is about. And He will one day come and bring all things into fruition that God has been working toward since the Garden of Eden—the glorified salvation and consummation of the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:24-25).

Jesus ruling in this heavenly position means that He now rules on “David’s throne” over the kingdom of God (Acts 2:22-36). God’s true kingdom was never a physical, earthly one. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). It does not “come with observation” (Luke 17:20-21). It is a spiritual kingdom and Jesus is the ruler. There is not an earthly throne from which Jesus will reign. He reigns in heaven right now.

Because our Savior reigns from heaven, we can live boldly and with absolute confidence in this world, not fearing anything (Philippians 2:9-11; Revelation 3:21).

And the fact that He is in heaven must not cause us to think that He is far away from us. On the contrary, His presence at the right hand of God means that He can also dwell within us through the presence of His Holy Spirit.

He is paying attention to us, He cares about our lives, and He is there to help us (Hebrews 10:12-13). The old song says, “When He was on the Cross, I was on His mind.” But we are still on His mind as He reigns at God’s right hand.

When we think of salvation and eternal life, we need to think of Jesus at the right hand of God. We need to think of the fact that He is seated there because His work is finished, but we also need to remember it is from there that He has a bird’s eye view of our lives so that He can help and encourage us. He is not watching us to catch us doing something wrong. He is watching over us because He loves us and cannot take His eyes off of us.

As the great Stephen was being killed for his faith in Christ and the bold things that he said, he looked into heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55-56). This is the only reference in the New Testament to Jesus “standing” rather than “sitting” at the right hand of God.

Why was He standing? No doubt out of respect for Stephen and to welcome him into His eternal arms.

Because Jesus is at the right hand of God, we can have the same assurance that such will happen to us. We may not see Jesus in the same way that Stephen did when it comes our time, but we will see Him through the eye of faith. He will be there, His grace and His presence will see us through.

And eternity in heaven awaits those who keep their “eyes fixed on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). There the writer says that Jesus should have our full attention at the right hand of God because “for the joy set before Him” He “endured the cross” and then “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

This spiritual reality, which we know by faith because we believe the promises of God, drives us to and gives us the spiritual strength for a life of obedience and holiness. Jesus has prepared a place for us to go where He is, and so we can live with endurance and strength (John 14:2-3; Revelation 22:3). We should think about heaven because that is where Jesus is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1-2).

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS AND THE GREAT TRIBULATION

The simple and biblical view of “The Great Tribulation” is nothing fanciful or speculative. And it may not be an “exciting” appeal to the flesh or an excitement to the intellect to occupy the mind. The truth, I believe, is far more direct and simple and meaningful than that.

According to Jesus, the great tribulation has already happened. It happened in AD 70 when Rome attacked the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and killed millions of people. Yes, the great tribulation was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in the first century.

Jesus is the Prophet that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 18:15-18. He was not just A prophet, He was THE Prophet sent by God.

A prophet was one who spoke for and communicated for God. Jesus spoke with the absolute authority of God because He is God.

How do we know that He was a true prophet? One of the reasons is because He predicted the fall of Jerusalem a generation before it happened and before there was any reason to believe that it would ever happen.

In the Olivet Discourse, which was Jesus’s teaching on the Mount of Olives in answer to questions His disciples had about the fall of the temple and the end of the Jewish age. Jesus said, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world until this time” (Matthew 24:21).

This was a direct reply to a direct question (Matthew 24:2-3). This was not just something Jesus brought up because it is even now yet to happen in the future. The disciples asked Him about His statement that not one stone would be left upon another when He viewed the temple. He predicted its destruction, in other words, and the disciples wanted to know when it was going to happen.

“Then Jesus went out and left the temple, and His disciples came to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, Don’t you see all these things? Truly I tell you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down. Now when He was on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:1-3).

That is how the whole teaching about the “great tribulation” came about. Jesus was answering a first century question in the first century. His words were spoken FOR us, but they were not spoken TO us. They were spoken to the people of that time concerning things that they would witness.

In spite of all of the blessings that God had bestowed on Israel as a whole, they, led by the religious leaders, rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Think of that. A religion based on awaiting the Messiah rejected Him when He came, which resulted in His death. That is what Jesus was talking about (Matthew 23:37-38).

The Jewish-Roman war occurred from approximately AD 66–70 and culminated with the fall of the city of Jerusalem and the total destruction of the temple, including all of the temple records upon which the Levitical system that developed under Moses was based.

This event was the fulfillment of much prophecy. Jesus Himself said plainly that these things would occur in the lifetime of the ones to whom He was speaking (Matthew 24:34). He was not talking to you or me. He was talking to them. Yes, it was said for our benefit because there are principles that we learn from it, as well as the fact that it reveals that Jesus could predict the future, which only God can do. But He was not warning us of anything that is still to happen in the future in this discussion. “That generation” has long passed and Jesus’s words were fulfilled. The great tribulation has already happened.

While Jesus gave no signs to look for that would herald His imminent bodily “second coming,” He did give many signs for first century believers to watch out for to know that the great tribulation—the fall of Jerusalem, the attack upon Jerusalem—was coming. When He spoke of wars and rumors of wars, and false Messiahs, and famines, and earthquakes, and persecution, He was talking about the impending fall of the temple (Matthew 24:5-9). We read about the fulfillment of these things both in the New Testament record as well as references from secular historians like Josephus.

During the reign of Claudius, there was a great famine, which was given great emphasis in the infancy stage of the early church (Acts 11:28). Acts 5:36-37 refers to the appearance of false Messiahs during that time. Jesus said to them, not to us, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that the desolation thereof has come near” (Luke 21:20).

That was THE sign that the great tribulation was about to happen. When Jesus’s followers saw the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem, they were to leave town as fast as they could (Luke 21:21-22).

We know from history that Christians who listened to Jesus did just what He said. They escaped the destruction because they knew what to look for and they had been warned concerning what was about to happen.

Christians avoided the great tribulation by fleeing to Pella in Greece before the Roman attack. They escaped this demonstration of God’s wrath for the rejection of His Son by fleeing. These were Jewish men and women who listened to Jesus and escaped the judgment of God because they accepted Jesus as their Messiah and obeyed His commands.

When Jesus referred to the fall of Jerusalem—the great tribulation—as the “abomination of desolation” (Matthew 24:15), His hearers (most of them, anyway), would have recognized that phrase from the Book of Daniel and the prophecy that Daniel made (Daniel 9:26-27). This had reference to the pagan Roman soldiers desecrating and then demolishing Solomon’s temple. As a means of mockery and humiliation, the Romans even brought idols into the temple’s holy place, which would have been called an abomination in the Old Testament. All of this was the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy that “the people of the prince who is coming will destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Daniel 9:26).

The things that Jesus said in this context had absolutely nothing to do with anything still to come in the future. He was not talking about the rise of “the Antichrist,” He was not talking about things happening between nations in our day, He was talking about something that was about to happen back then. The judgment for rejecting Christ was coming upon Judaism.

Jesus did use apocalyptic and symbolic language in reference to these things. When He said in Matthew 24:29 that the “sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,” that would not have been a surprise to His Jewish listeners who were familiar with the Old Testament’s apocalyptic language (Isaiah 13:10, Joel 2:10). This kind of speech is symbolism referring to the fall of nations and the opponents of God. It is not speaking about events that will literally happen in the cosmos.

Often when God brought judgment upon a nation, He described it as HIM coming upon that nation. While there will be a literal coming of the Lord at the end of time (Acts 1:9-11), the “coming of the Son of Man” in Matthew 24:30 must be interpreted in light of the context of what Jesus was talking about and the other things that He said. Here He was not talking about His bodily return, but about the fact that when the Roman armies came against Jerusalem, that was the judgment of God. And therefore God was “coming” in judgment.

We see that God “came on the clouds” to bring wrath upon Egypt (Isaiah 19:1). Using the same symbolism, Jesus came in the clouds of judgment against Jerusalem.

Revelation 1:7 is also about the coming of Jesus and judgment upon the nation of Israel when it says, “He is coming on the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.” Those who in the first century rejected Jesus and were responsible for His murder, would see Him coming in judgment when Rome attacked the city of Jerusalem.

While the temple was still standing, in the intervening period between the death of our Lord and the fall of Jerusalem, God stated that the Old Covenant was “ready to vanish away”  (Hebrews 8:13). It completely vanished, was gone, was taken out of the way, when the temple was destroyed.

So the Great Tribulation was an event from the past that has already happened. Its fulfillment happened literally in the first century. Jesus would go on in Matthew 24 to talk about His literal, bodily return, which suggests that the great tribulation was a “type” of the end of the world and God’s final judgment upon sinful humanity if they reject Jesus. But the great tribulation itself has already happened.

The great tribulation signified the end of the Old Covenant age and the establishment of God’s true kingdom. It did not have reference to something global and eschatological as far as the world itself is concerned. That will come, but that is not what the great tribulation was.

As long as the temple stood, Jews who rejected Jesus could point to the temple and say that “we are the true children of God.” But Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ, like Jesus and Paul and Peter and all the apostles and the church in Jerusalem that started in Acts 2 were saying, “No, Christians are the true children of God.”

And the Jews who rejected Jesus held an advantage over the Jews who accepted Him as long as the temple was still standing. Because they could point to the temple and say, “Everyone knows that God set that up.” But when the temple was destroyed, God showed the world who His true children, His true chosen people are—Jews and Gentiles who accept Christ.

If you want to understand when the great tribulation would happen, all you have to do is believe the words of Jesus: “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:34). All of the things He spoke about up until that statement were going to happen in the historical context of the first century.

Some say this casts a negative light on the Bible’s prophecy. On the contrary, continuous unfulfilled speculation from “prophecy experts” about the end times and how Jesus is always “coming soon” because the “signs are being fulfilled” and “the end is near” because of how bad the world is—those are the things that make a mockery of Bible prophecy.

When people are told that they need to get their lives right “because Jesus is about to come,” and then He doesn’t come during the specified time, that means that biblical prophecy failed. But biblical prophecy did not fail. And it does not fail. Because what Jesus prophesied actually happened when He said that it would.

     Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

DAILY TIME WITH JESUS

The most important thing we have to do each day is to spend time with Jesus. We simply cannot afford to neglect this daily discipline. Our spiritual health and vitality depends on it. Jesus is the source of our life and our strength. Make time with Him the most important part of your day.

As our example concerning how to live close to God, Jesus made time to spend with His Father, no matter how busy He was (Luke 5:16). So many things are constantly clamoring for our attention. Christ, however, deserves to have the full attention of our lives, and He is the only one who does.

We are not talking about something that should be viewed as a duty, but rather as a privilege. It is our joy to appreciate Christ and who He is to be in our lives. There is no relationship with anyone, including Jesus, without spending time with them. Our time with Jesus needs to be daily fellowship.

Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches, and without Him we can do nothing (John 15:1-5). The way to be strengthened and enriched and fed by the vine is to take time to meditate on His word and talk to Him, believing that He is listening because He desires intimate fellowship with us.

The great invitation of Jesus is to “Come to me, all you who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Coming to Him begins by coming to Him for salvation, but we should continue to come to Him daily in renewed fellowship and concentration on Jesus as our spiritual life.

While we need physical rest at times, and Jesus can certainly help us in every aspect of life, this is primarily rest for the soul that He promises us. It is a time of spiritual connectedness and renewal that can come only from the hand of Christ.

Time with Christ is never wasted. You are not too busy to spend time with Jesus. You are too busy NOT to spend time with Him. In other words, the affairs of your life need to be ordered with the correct priorities, with Jesus as the first one. Everything else is better when Jesus has His rightful place in our hearts.

We are mindful of God’s provision for His people in the wilderness, the daily manna with which He fed them (Exodus 16:4). They were not allowed to gather manna for the next day. They had to trust Him daily to provide for them. The only relationship with Jesus is a daily one. It cannot be once a week “at church.” Our devotional life is essential to being the people of Christ.

Jesus spoke often of “abiding” in Him. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31). Abiding in Him should be equated in our minds with thinking about Him, meditating on Him, and spending time with Him each day.

Jesus’s friend Mary knew that spending time with Christ was the “better part,” more important than any “work” that we can do for Him—as important as that is (Luke 10:42). Work must be understood as flowing from our relationship with Jesus.

Again considering the 15th chapter of John, we see that Jesus said that by abiding in Him, we will bear fruit. Working for Him will take care of itself if we spend time with Him.

Let us sit at Christ’s feet daily and receive strength from Him. Let us spend time with Him, like Mary sitting at His feet, to receive from Him the things that we need each day to live for God.

The sweetest thing in life is personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

     Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

THE AMAZING JESUS

There are so many reasons why Jesus is amazing. It would be impossible to list all of the ways in which He is. There has never been anyone like Him. There will never be anyone like Him again. He brings “life and immortality to light through His Gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). He is the most amazing man who ever lived. Yes, there is hope—real, lasting hope—because of Jesus.

Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, was raised from the dead, and therefore, He is alive forevermore (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Because of His death and resurrection, because of the work that He did, we can be new creatures in Christ. Everything is made new because of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). He once lived in the flesh upon this earth (John 1:14). But where is He now? He is at the right hand of God, having ascended into heaven to represent and make intercession for His people (Hebrews 7:25).

And, what’s more, He is coming back. He will return to judge the earth and render His name and legacy in an exonerated manner to the world at large (2 Timothy 4:1; Matthew 25:31-32). That’s why the most important thing in life is to be one with Christ and live our lives for Him. Always be ready to meet Him. Accept Him as your Savior so that when He comes, it will be a day of celebration for you.

As we live in this world, our amazing Jesus brings peace and comfort to our trouble spirits (John 14:27). This is a world of difficulty and pain. Of this there is no doubt. Through Christ, we have the forgiveness of our sins and His powerful presence to give us abundant life through His strength and power even now (Philippians 4:13; Ephesians 3:20).

The only way to heaven is through Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Eternal salvation comes through Him, and it is offered to the entire world (Acts 4:12). We have hope through Him, we have eternal life through Him, and we have the greatest purpose for living that is humanly possible to have (Ephesians 2:8-9, Colossians 1:27).

The amazing love of Jesus is shown through His compassionate death in our place. He died the death that we deserve. He died for our sins so that we can be saved. Even though He is God, He “made Himself nothing” and lived as a servant (Philippians 2:7). His compassion and love for us, amazing in its capacity, is shown through His willingness to suffer in a world He created, and to be rejected by the very people He came to save (Luke 9:58; Isaiah 53:3). The greatest act of love in the history of the world happened when Jesus died on the cross for sinners.

And even in His death, we see how amazing He is, and how amazing His love is. For even as He was mocked, while dying, He was concerned about the souls of the ones who were responsible for His death. He prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Because He lived an amazing life of perfection and obedience to the Father’s will, and because He died a loving and sacrificial death for us, He now freely offers eternal salvation to all who will accept it (John 3:16). He was the most selfless man who ever lived. Truly amazing. He proved His love for us by dying for us (Romans 5:8).

Jesus is amazing because He completely and perfectly revealed God to us. We cannot understand or know God in and of ourselves. God has to reveal Himself to us, and He has willingly and freely chosen to do that very thing.

Jesus is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:1-3). He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:17). Everything we need to know about God is found in Christ Jesus.

Think of all the amazing works He performed while He was on earth to prove His authority over the world, over sickness and over death. No person can compare to Jesus, the Son of God. He turned water into wine (John 2:1-11), healed the sick and gave sight to the blind (Luke 17:12-19; John 9:1-7), and even commanded the winds and waves to be still (Mark 4:39). Even more amazingly, He brought his friend Lazarus back to life from the dead (John 11:38-44). Therefore, we are talking about a man who has authority and power over death itself.

And yet, we see His amazing character and the greatness of this man, not merely in the fact that He possessed such power, but in the way that He used it. He did not use it to make His life easier or to glorify Himself. He did things to help others and to bring glory to His Father.

Rather than using what He had been blessed with for personal gain and profit, He displayed an amazing love and acceptance for those who were oppressed, ostracized, sick and hurting in any way (Luke 4:18). He showed us what the Father is like, making God accessible to us and known to us (John 14:9). The miracles that He did were not a personal display of selfishness. They were not tricks. They were manifestations to prove that He was and is the Son of God and that He came to reconcile us to God the Father (John 21:25).

How amazing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is!

           Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

CALVINISM: “UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION”

Calvinism, by its very nature, complicates and obscures the simple and clear Gospel of Christ. It teaches things like “two wills of God” (revealed and secret), “two calls of God” (external to all and internal to the elect only), “two loves of God” (“general” “love” where He does nice things for people on earth but has chosen them to go to hell, and “saving” love which He only has for His “elect”), two levels of atonement (sufficient for the non-elect but efficient for the elect only), etc., etc. This is all just convoluted nonsense.

“From then on Jesus began to preach, Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17). Jesus spoke to the general population and told them to repent. And yet, according to Calvinism, He secretly knew that not everyone could repent. Only the “elect” can. So He was calling out to people telling them to do something He knew they could not do. That makes our Lord a deceiver. Any doctrine that would do that must be rejected outright.

Paul said to unbelievers, “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now He commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to Him. For He has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man He has appointed, and He proved to everyone who this is by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Paul told everyone that they must repent. But if “unconditional election”—the idea that God has elected some to be saved, and others to be lost—is true, then Paul was in on the secret and he deceived people, as well. He was commanding people to do something he knew full well that they could not do.

The Bible tells us “all Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16, cf. 2 Peter 1:21). What we need to know is what God has revealed. Endless speculation and theorizing about mysterious things like God’s sovereignty is not to be the believer’s focus. Of course we are to believe that God is sovereignly in control, but if we think that what the Bible teaches about sovereignty negates human responsibility, and ability, then we don’t know anything about the sovereignty of God.

The doctrine of unconditional election, espoused by Calvinist and “Reformed” theologians, plainly teaches that God selects some individuals to be saved, and others to be lost. How they describe God’s election of the unsaved to be lost is irrelevant. If God intentionally chooses some individuals and not others, then He has created some people to go to heaven and some people just to go to hell. Calvinism demonizes God and deifies human intellectualism.

Regardless of whether or not you have faith, in other words, God chose you to be saved. And they cannot deny this, because they deny that the fact that God foresaw who would have faith and who would not have it has anything to do with His election. It was totally by His own will. Which means that it is God’s will that people go to hell and be lost and that has been His will all along. If that were true, that would be His right. He is God. But since it is not true, and that is not the God of the Bible, this is a disgusting and offensive way to view God.

This doctrine is totally at variance with the Bible and the Gospel message. This is not the Gospel and there is no such thing as “unconditional election.” The Bible teaches that the Gospel is for everyone and that everyone has both the responsibility and the ability to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation. Everyone.

The most familiar verse in the Bible has to be explained away by the Calvinist as though it does not exist. For it tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His Son to die for us so that we can all be saved (John 3:16). Everyone can be saved because Jesus died for everyone.

What does the Calvinist make of this verse? He has to say that the world “does not mean everybody in the world,” which it clearly does. They have to place a shady interpretation on it that says God elected people “from all over the world,” but not every single person, so not everyone can be saved. This is just false. Jesus said that “whoever” believes in Him and is baptized will be saved (Mark 16:16). And I believe Jesus.

If “unconditional election” was a real Bible doctrine to be taken seriously, then there would be no urgency to evangelism. In fact, there would be no reason to evangelize at all from any logical standpoint.

But even if you do so to obey a command, when you are sharing Jesus with the lost, if you believe that they are elect or not elect, trying to persuade them to come when you know some of them can’t come would be a foolish waste of time. You could just “obey the command” to tell them the Gospel. If you do and they don’t come, they are not your problem to worry about. You don’t have to try and persuade them. They can’t come if they’re not elect. Why would any Christ-follower want to believe something like this?

The proponent of unconditional election has too many Bible obstacles to overcome for this to even be taken seriously. God clearly says that He shows no partiality (Romans 2:11 (Acts 10:34; James 2:1, 9). Did He lie? What could be more partial than choosing someone to be saved and another to be lost?

Contrary to “unconditional election,” the Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all – ALL—should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). 1 Timothy 2:4 says God “desires everyone to be saved.” It is impossible to harmonize these verses with the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election—that God willingly chose to elect some and not to elect others for salvation. In Acts 10:34-35, Peter plainly says that it is the “truth” that God “shows no partiality,” but everyone who fears Him and seeks Him will find Him and be saved.

The Gospel is a universal call to everyone. Again, if that is true—and it is—then there is no such thing as unconditional election. Jesus invited “all” of those who are “weary and burdened” to “come to Him” for rest (Matthew 11:28). The requirement is not that you be “elected.” It is that you realize your need and decide to come. Revelation 22:17 extends the salvation invitation to anyone who wants to come.

Even though everyone does not choose to accept the call, the call is freely offered to everyone. The Gospel is for all. Calvinism is not. Calvinism is not the Gospel. It is a perversion of it.

Unconditional election is deterministic fatalism, whether we see it for what it is or not. It reflects negatively on the character of God, has Him making claims about Himself that are not true and requiring a higher standard of morality from His people than He exhibits Himself.

Contrary to Calvinism’s “unconditional election,” the Bible tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) and to make “your calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10). In the Bible, the elect are those who accept Jesus.

God desires a reciprocal relationship with everyone. The will of humanity is not so corrupt that we cannot choose to follow Jesus without God doing the choosing for us. All of us have a choice to make. Will we receive or reject Jesus? And all of us have another choice to make. Will we accept the true Gospel or will we believe Calvinism?

Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

JESUS OUR BEST FRIEND

It has been said that a true friend is someone who knows all about you and yet loves you anyway. That is certainly the case with Jesus. The hairs of our head are all numbered (Luke 12:7). He knows everything about our lives, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, our struggles—everything (Psalm 139:1-4).

The Bible says that a friend sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). That is descriptive of Jesus, the best friend you will ever have. Because the fascinating thing about it is, He does not just offer us friendship, but He offers us Himself. Meaning that He is always with us, He does not forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He is a friend, but He is more than a friend. He is our life (Colossians 3:4).

Which of your friends does this sound like:“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus proved the depth of His love and friendship for you. What would He have to do to prove His love and His loyalty more than what He has already done?

His death was about saving us from our sins. It was also about bringing us into a state of reconciliation with Him (Romans 5:10–11). That is companionship, where we are together forever with Him.

True friends are there for you when life gets tough (Matthew 11:28). Jesus is a safe space for His friends, bringing peace to our lives no matter what is going on around us (John 14:27). Friends are always ready with wise council when it is needed, and Jesus is not only the giver of wisdom (James 1:5), He IS true wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30).

No one on earth is a perfect friend to another person. But Jesus is perfect. And even when we fail Him, failing to show loyalty the way that Peter did, Jesus still wants what is best for us, looks for our return, and is ever ready to forgive us and restore us to Himself (Luke 22:61–62; John 21:15–17). This is a friend who takes up for you and looks out for you “when you’re not around” (Romans 8:34).

Your life will never be the same when your best friend is Jesus. If you want Him to be, He will be. Come to Him in faith. There is no one like Him. His love for you and His presence in your life are always constant.

Few things are better than spending quality time with a loyal friend. With Jesus, you can spend all the time with Him that you want. Daily, even moment-by-moment fellowship with Him is not only possible, but it is what He seeks. Listen to His voice and grow in your dependence upon Him through daily and consistent fellowship (Revelation 3:20; John 14:23).

Obey Him and allow Him to live inside of you (Galatians 2:20). By so doing, you will see His love overtaking you. Not only will His love embrace the totality of your life, but you will find yourself loving others because of Him (1 John 4:19).

One of the greatest blessings in the world is true and loyal friendship. It makes life better all the way around. But, unfortunately, in the world in which we live, true friends are not the easiest thing to find. But because God is a God of love, there is one friend that we can depend on no matter what. Jesus said to those who were willing to follow Him, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). It is amazing to know that we can be on intimate terms of friendship and love with the creator of the universe.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is our Lord and Savior. But He is also the best friend you will ever have. Nobody loves you, cares for you, or likes you like Jesus.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway

RACISM

Racism among the people of God is simply unacceptable. In fact, living as a racist and claiming to be a Christian at the same time is impossible. Racism and love for Jesus are mutually exclusive and it is time that you accept that fact if you have not already.

There is no room for “respect of persons” when it comes to people who follow God, who is no respecter of persons. We should fight against oppression and any negative thinking toward people who look different from us. We must realize that our differences are superficial and skin deep. There is no superior race.

God asked through the prophet in Micah 6:8, “And just what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” A sense of right and wrong, and of justice, comes from God (Psalm 33:5). And those who follow God should stand up for those who are oppressed (Isaiah 1:17).

We are to love everyone and treat everyone right. We should see the brotherhood of humanity and that God only has one race in His mind, the human race. We are all descended from Adam and Eve. We are all one blood (Acts 17:26).

Racism would be eliminated completely if we would just do what God says. The constant command of the Bible is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (James 2:8; Matthew 22:39). And according to Jesus, that applies to everyone who is in any kind of need of your help.

He told a story that highlights both our responsibility to other people and the stupidity of racism (Luke 10:29-37). And those who have been victims of racism should remember that loving your neighbor as yourself includes loving your enemies (Luke 6:27-28).

How can people who are called to live with “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12) be racist in any way? How could we possibly think that one race is better than another in God’s eyes ?

As Christians, we can work together to make the world a better place. Although our focus should never be a “social gospel” or “reforming” a world that is under the control of the devil, we are to help people who are in this world by showing them the love and compassion of Jesus. Which means that we can take a stand against racism, whether it be systemic or individual. And the best way to do that—the way to start, if you will—is to make sure that you are not a racist yourself.

In Christ, we recognize that there are no racial distinctions in God’s eyes (Galatians 3:28). We are all one in Christ Jesus. So by taking our stand against oppression against anyone and refusing to take part in racist ideas and beliefs, we can work toward the unity for which Jesus prayed (John 17:20-23).

We are supposed to be one with everyone who is in Christ, and there are people of all races that are in Christ. So as believers, we see people as individuals created in the image of God for whom Christ died. We do not “see color.”

One of the things that the Gospel is capable of doing is breaking down any kind of divisions that exist among people. Racial divisions are brought down by the true Gospel of Christ. We have the answer to racism. Passing laws and signing bills, as important as those things are, has not ended racism. But the love of Jesus in the body of Christ would end it forever if people would believe and obey Jesus.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14 that Christ “has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility.” That means that people who are oppressed by racial prejudice can run to Jesus for refuge and acceptance and love in the body of Christ. If they don’t find that love and acceptance where you are, then it is not the body of Christ that you represent.

James 2:9 is as plain and direct as could possibly be. If you show respect of persons, if you exercise prejudice against other people, you commit sin and have evil in your heart. You must purge this from your system. You must get rid of this. This is completely unacceptable and you cannot live for Jesus and do it.

The body of Christ, the church, is to represent to the world a unified picture. It is the church that should show people what unity in spite of being different “races” means. It is not the government’s role or the public school system’s role, it is the church’s role to show what true unity looks like. What living together as brothers and sisters with no racism looks like. The diversity of the body of Christ is one of its most important features (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

The first ones to end segregation should have been the churches. In fact, there should have never been any segregation in the churches. But the churches were not the first ones to end it, the government was. And that is pathetic and sad. And even today segregation in churches is not a thing of the past as it should be. It is rightly said that Sundays are still the most segregated time in America.

“But we worship differently and have different cultures,” someone argues. To hell with our “different cultures” and “worship styles.” Those are not the things that matter. The things that matter are love for and allegiance to Jesus. And worshipping Jesus is not about a particular style of music or bodily movement, it is about focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ and loving Him above anything.

The very basis of racism is exposed and rejected by belief in the Bible, for the Bible teaches that we all descend from the same ancestors. We all come from God, Adam and Eve, and therefore there is in reality no such thing as a “mixing of the races.” We are all from the same father and mother, ultimately going back to the creation of the world.

Genesis 1:27 teaches that everyone has been created in the image of God. That means that the dignity of humanity forces us to recognize the dignity of every individual. We are one in Christ. End of story.

Did the apostles preach against racism? Of course they did. They weren’t dealing with “black versus white” racism, but with Jew versus Gentile racism. But the principles would apply no matter what races we are talking about.

Respect of persons, racism, is a sin and it will cost you your soul. Give it up. Repent. Confess the sin and change. Like any other sin, you can repent and stop living in it.

       Bryan Dewayne Dunaway