אֶמצַע

Ezekiel 19

Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

And say, What is thy mother?

A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.

Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.
And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.

And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.
Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.
​
And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.


​

A relationship with Jesus

is the most important

relationship a person can have.
​


A relationship with Jesus results in new life (Ephesians 2:4–5); forgiveness (Colossians 1:14); the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16–17); and, in the future, bodily resurrection and a home in heaven (John 14:19; Philippians 3:20–21).

To establish a relationship with Jesus is not difficult. Jesus Himself came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10); He has issued the invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28); He has called for our trust (John 14:1); and He has spoken to us as “friends” (John 15:14–15). So, Jesus is certainly willing to have a relationship with us.

Having a relationship with Jesus

​is based on 

​God’s grace, through faith.

To understand,

we need to look at a few relatively simple

​ truths

found in the Bible:

In Luke 17:20–21, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (NKJV). The context of Jesus’ statement is a question put to Him by His Pharisee detractors who had asked when the kingdom of God would come (verse 20).

Jesus’ answer was that the kingdom of God was not coming in the manner the Pharisees were expecting. The kingdom would not be inaugurated with spectacle or splendor; there would be no great and magnificent leader who staked out a geographical claim and routed the Romans; rather, the kingdom would come silently and unseen, much as leaven works in a batch of dough (see Matthew 13:33). In fact, Jesus says, the kingdom had already begun, right under the Pharisees’ noses. God was ruling in the hearts of some people, and the King Himself was standing among them, although the Pharisees were oblivious to that fact.

Various translations render the Greek of Luke 17:21 various ways. The phrase translated “within you” in the KJV and NKJV is translated as “in your midst” in the NIV, NASB, and NET; “among you” in the NLT and HCSB; and “in the midst of you” in the ESV. Earlier versions of the NIV had “within you” with a marginal note suggesting “among you.” There is obviously a difference between saying

“the kingdom of God is within you”

and

​ “the kingdom of God is among you.”


“Within you”

comes off as an unfavorable translation, seeing that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees at the time. Jesus was surely not saying that the kingdom of God resided within the Pharisees’ hearts. The Pharisees opposed Jesus and had no relationship with God. Jesus in other places denounced them as “whitewashed tombs” and “hypocrites” (Matthew 23:27).

The better translation would be “in your midst” or “among you.” Jesus was telling the Pharisees that He brought the kingdom of God to earth. Jesus’ presence in their midst gave them a taste of the kingdom life, as attested by the miracles that Jesus performed. Elsewhere, Jesus mentions His miracles as definitive proof of the kingdom: “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20).

There are three popular interpretations of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:21 that the kingdom of God is within you (or among you): 1) the kingdom of God is essentially inward, within man’s heart; 2) the kingdom is within your reach if you make the right choices; and 3) the kingdom of God is in your midst in the person and presence of Jesus. The best of these interpretations, it seems, is the third: Jesus was inaugurating the kingdom as He changed the hearts of men, one at a time.

For the time being, Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). One day, however, the kingdom of God will be manifest on the earth (Isaiah 35:1), and Jesus Christ will rule a physical kingdom from David’s throne (Isaiah 9:7) with Jerusalem as His capital (Zechariah 8:3).

The first truth we need to recognize in order to have a relationship with Jesus is that, naturally, our relationship with God is broken. We have sinned against Him. We have done things that are wrong in His sight. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s standard is perfection—since He is absolutely holy—and we all fall short of that standard. We each need to humble ourselves before God and admit our sin.

​
To have a relationship

with Jesus,
​

we also need to understand the biblical truth that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “Wages” are payment for what we do. So, the payment or result of our sin is “death”—this is speaking of spiritual death, eternal separation from God in the place the Bible calls hell.

To have a relationship with Jesus, we also need to grasp a third truth—and this is a wonderful one: God loves us in spite of our sins, and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for us, as our Substitute. “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8, NLT). He didn’t wait for us to clean up our act or somehow overcome our sin (an impossibility); rather, He sacrificed Himself for us while we were still estranged from Him. He chose to take the punishment that we deserved.

​He took our place!

Then, we need to admit that there’s absolutely nothing we can do to save ourselves or to contribute to our salvation. On the basis of Christ’s sacrifice, God forgives our sins by grace, that is, by an undeserved blessing. “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). The Lord Jesus has already done all the work (John 19:30), and He did it perfectly! Salvation is not about what we can do but about what Christ has done.