A lot of times, especially as believers, we say things like “thank God for Jesus” but only a few times do we actually ponder on how messed up our lives would have been without Jesus. To buttress the post of last week, this week’s post will also cover the reasons why Jesus is important to us as Christians and why we need to appreciate Him more.

The moment we receive Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour, we become born again. That is, we become new creatures; different from the former specie of humans; the specie of humans found in the world (among unbelievers), we now live a HolySpirit-empowered life. This new life is not something we could have received from keeping the law or striving to. It is one of the many gifts that accompany our belief in Christ Jesus as the Saviour. Alongside this new life we received, we are also born again into a new family; the family of God. We became dead to the world, we are now reborn into Christ’s family. For this reason, we can now be referred to as gods (a representation of God) and sons and daughters of the Most High. This gives us bragging right before the enemy wherein we can boast in the Lord who calls us His dear children. Jesus enables us to tell the devil “get your hands of me, I am a child of God”. [2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Peter 1:23; Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 3:26; John 10:34; Psalms 82:6; 1 Corinthians 1:31]

Formerly, a wrong move could earn a person excommunication. As in, a person could err and be cut off from the people of God. It was like a sort of “sudden-death” mandate. You err, forget about being a member of the family. However, after God graciously sought for a way to remedy this treatment we brought upon ourselves, He gave us Jesus. Jesus Christ paved the way for us such that now, we can boldly approach the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. The throne of grace is something that we never could have imagined before Christ because grace came with Him. That mercy that was almost inaccessible to us in previous times is now free for us to receive because of the bold access to the throne of grace that we have gained. Guilt and sin can’t stop us now because our advocate; Jesus Christ, constantly advocates for us before God. It is this show of love and grace that ordinarily makes us live to please God. [Leviticus 18:29; Hebrews 4:15-16; 1 John 2:1 AMP]  

Without Jesus Christ, a majority of us were set for eternal death. The minority who weren’t, were still at risk of eternal death. “This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work—whether native-born or a foreigner residing among you—  because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins” Leviticus 16:29-30 NIV. Which means, atonement was only carried out once a year. Till the atonement day, a person was still living in the filthiness of their sins committed. Even the priest who was to offer all these sacrifices for atonement was not safe. One wrong move and it may be his dead body that would be dragged out of the tabernacle where he met with God. Death was lurking amongst even the people of God, as at then. When Jesus died and became the first born of every creature, He gave a death blow to death itself, He held captivity captive. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. Eternal life that starts here on earth is part of the package when one believes in Jesus as Saviour. He offered Himself up as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and made atonement for all our sins. He caused us to receive mercy from God such that we don’t fear death nor look forward to the grave, we now have victory over death and look forward to being raptured to reign with God Almighty through faith we have in Christ Jesus. [Leviticus chapter 16; Colossians 1:15; Ephesians 4:8; John 1:29]

In addition to grace which Jesus brought us, He also brought us mercy; mercy that transforms and gives a new life, mercy that gives grace and mercy that saves us from death, both spiritual and physical. The thing about Jesus Christ and His brides (those who love Him and believe in Him and are actively waiting for His return; in essence, the church) is that nothing and absolutely no one can pluck us out of His hands. In order words, we are forever rooted in His mercy.“And I give them eternal life and they will never ever by any means perish and no one will ever snatch them out of My hand” John 10:28