Everyone is in need of redemption. Our natural condition was characterized by guilt: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Christ’s redemption has freed us from guilt, being “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
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#Paul makes it clear: You will not be justified by any work or anything you can do to make yourself better. Paul wrote many of the books in the #NewTestament, written after Jesus’ #ministry. In Romans, Paul writes about #justification, “For all have sinned and -fall- short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his #grace through the #redemption that came by #Christ #Jesus” (Romans 3:23-23) It’s -because- of Jesus’ death on the #cross that God has wiped clean the penalty of sin. Instead, God has #given righteousness to those who #trust in Christ. So in this sense, Christians are simply people *willing to *accept this #gift -from Him- rather than continue trying to make themselves righteous by their own efforts to be moral. Jesus, the -only perfect- human in history, did for ALL #humanity what no one else could do. He took our guilt and -instead- gave us #freedom. Paul writes in Galatians 2:16, “Know that a person is *not justified by the works of the law, but by *faith in *Jesus *Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” No one is capable of being good enough to gain justification on their own. But you can be completely justified when Jesus takes your sin and sin penalty away from you, granting us His righteousness instead. Knowing you are justified will help you see yourself the way God *sees* YOU: blameless and PERFECT. Obviously, no one is perfect, but God does not look at His people who #trust Him- and see all their sin; Instead, He sees them in the same way He sees Jesus- because Jesus has covered their sin with -His- righteousness. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but #Christ #lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live -by faith- in the Son of #God, who loved me and gave Himself for me..”Galatians 5:22-23. Jesus, the only perfect human in history, did for all #humanity what -no one- else could do. He took our guilt and instead gave us #freedom.
The first mention of the ark of the testimony is in Exodus 25:10. God gave Moses specific instructions for building a tabernacle as they traveled in the wilderness. The tabernacle would be the place where the glory of God would dwell among His people (Exodus 25:8–9). Among hundreds of other descriptive instructions for this tabernacle, God told Moses to build an ark of the testimony, also called the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25:21–22). The words testimony and covenant both refer to the conditional agreement made between God and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai. An ark is, literally, a box or chest. So the ark of the testimony is the “box of the agreement.”
Contextually in Luke 18 we are near the end of the long journey to *Jerusalem, a trek that occupies nearly a third of Luke’s gospel. The parable comes of Jesus’ discourse on His return, an event that will occur at the very *end of *history. During the period between first and second comings, the covenant community will endure great hardship and persecution, so the parable motivates believers to *persevere. It is prefaced with a purpose statement: “that they [the disciples] ought always to pray and not lose heart” The phrase “lose heart” occurs often in the New Testament in the context of end-times #persecution. For example, Paul tells the Ephesian church “not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory” (3:13; 2 Cor. 4:1, 16; Gal. 6:9; 2 Thess. 3:13). The general flow of the parable is easy enough: a widow steadfastly pleads with a pagan judge to grant her justice. Nearly all details of the parable are vague—we know nothing of *why or *how the widow was wronged, nothing about the “*adversary*,” and nothing about where this took place but we -do- learn something about the nature of the *judge. He “neither feared God nor respected man” -because of the widow’s persistence, he handed down a favorable verdict. In the wider context of Luke 17–18- in preceding passages, much of what Jesus teaches concerns the believers’ *perseverance before His second coming (17:22–37). As history unfolds, hostility *increases between God’s people and the world. Living in a period of time that is oddly marked by the presence of the kingdom of God and the tribulation (Matt. 13:24–50). Participating in the kingdom inevitably results in great hardship and persecution. (Luke 17:33). They will be wronged, and the world will do its worst. But, because the widow persevered, the judge avenged her. Faith is indeed a gift of God and one of the closest passages to the parable of the #persistent widow is the #fifth #seal in Revelation 9:10, where the deceased saints in heaven cry out to God, God reminds us of one thing: “Wait a little longer” 💫🌍
In Jerusalem, during the week of Passover, a group of Greeks who had made a commitment to follow the laws of Judaism asked to speak with Jesus (John 12). Their request for an audience caused Jesus to declare: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23). The deep interest of the Greeks was evidence that the world was ready for His redemptive mission to be culminated by His atoning death: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32) All men” — Greeks as well as Jews — this is the clear implication of these profound words recorded by John. The events of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem bear eloquent testimony to the fact that He moved resolutely toward the cross. He entered the city on a donkey, in order to fulfill the prophet Zechariah’s prediction from the Old Testament of a king who would speak peace to the nations and whose dominion would be from sea to sea (Zech9:9-10). Then He went to the temple and found greedy religious businessmen taking advantage of those that had come to worship. So He cleansed this corruption from the court of the Gentiles (the outermost court of the temple in Jerusalem that could be entered by all peoples), declaring sternly, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations” (Mark 11:17). Standing in the temple, He denounced the chief priests and Pharisees, the official leaders of the Jewish nation, for having failed to be good stewards of the truths of the kingdom which had been entrusted to the chosen people, and solemnly declared, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” When asked concerning the end of the age, Jesus said, in effect: “Don’t be misled. It will not be as soon as some think. For this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations, and after that, the end shall come” Concerning His return in glory, He was purposely vague, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows. The next evening in the upper room with His disciples, He sealed the new covenant with them, in anticipation of His death.
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