BY GREG CRUM
“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” II Corinthians 1:19-20
The early preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ were not “seeker-friendly” by modern definition. They did not bend the message to fit the structure of current society, and they did not “read the room” and water down the ministry so as not to offend those who might not agree with their faith. They held dear a very absolute truth, and they were definitive in the administration of that life-giving message. The result? Revolution. Empire change. Civilization restructured for thousands of years.
Last week we wrote of the unchanging nature of our God. Our Father does not change because He does not need to. He is perfect as He is, and, by definition, absolute. Same can be said of the Son. Perfect, complete, wanting nothing, by definition, absolute.
We left off thinking about the definitions of the word “absolute” and how fittingly they applied to the Son when he walked this earth.
Read through the Gospels and you will see that Jesus was the most absolute man that ever lived. There was never any wishy-washy wavering with Jesus. No “sort of” or “maybe” with him. He was absolute in his thoughts, speech, and deeds. This was a secret to his success as a “son of man” when he lived among us. It was how he could contact Heaven so readily, and receive God’s will in manifestation so effectively.
Here’s the thing: if we would just emulate this absoluteness, we would be more successful in these areas as well.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus is our pattern, our blueprint to living life. If he was absolute in his thoughts, beliefs, words and deeds, we should be as well. Do you want to have the kind of faith that makes anything possible? Would you like to possess the kind of faith that Jesus demonstrated was possible for a man to operate in? It takes more than just reading Mark 10:27 and Mark 11:24 a few times. It takes believing those truths absolutely and developing the definitive point of view that Jesus possessed.
Our Jesus was and is absolute. He was never trying to skirt around the issues or hedge his bets with safe answers. He wasn’t concerned with making a verbal “back door” for himself in case he was later proved wrong. He was never looking for a way out of what he declared. Why? Because he knew what he was talking about. He was not trying to please men. He was not running for political office after all. Look at what he achieved though. The honor he brought the Father, the kingdom of darkness destroyed, in large part because he spoke and acted on the truth without reservation.
Can we be more like our Jesus in these regards?
Sure, we can. We can be strong in word and deed, much like Jesus. But if we are going to follow these footsteps of his, we must overcome the primary obstacles that would hinder us from an absolute lifestyle.
Obstacles? Yes, there are a few common reasons believers today are less absolute than they should be. First, too many Christians do not know what they should know about God. Hosea 4:6 warns that there is destruction in ignorance.
Some believers cannot speak with definitiveness concerning important issues today because they do not know what God thinks about those things. That is not only a shame, but it is really malpractice.
We do not live in the Dark Ages. We all have ready access to the Scriptures. There is no valid excuse for ignorance in our generation. We can know beyond a shadow of a doubt what God thinks about all manner of issues. We can know the realities of life absolutely by embracing the Word of God above all else.
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.