WHAT IF JESUS HADN'T COME?

 On Sunday our pastor read part of a letter from a missionary family.  They recounted some of the challenges they were facing, challenges that would tax any of us.  At the end of their letter they asked this question:  “What if Jesus hadn’t come?” 

Well, what if He hadn’t? 

As I reflected on how I might answer that question, one thought came to mind:  life would be hopeless.  

If Jesus hadn’t come I’d still be working furiously in an effort to win God’s approval with my works, and never, ever, really knowing if it was enough to balance out my faults and failures.

I would never know the wonderful assurance that I had been forgiven – not because I deserved it – but because Jesus made it possible.  Instead I would be consumed by my guilt and fearful.

If Jesus hadn’t come, joy would remain elusive.  Oh, there would be happiness in happy things – people, birthdays, new jobs, new babies – but the joy that comes from knowing Jesus, even when life holds no joy, would be absent.

When life brought despair through deaths, divorces, disease, tragedy – there would be nowhere to turn for true and lasting comfort.  Only a “cross your fingers and hope for the best” dream to hold onto.   The promise that “all things work together for the good to those who love God” would be absent.

Without Jesus, God would remain “out there”, seemingly distant, indifferent, removed from the suffering of us humans.  

Without Jesus I would go on thinking of God as the heavenly policeman, ready to smack me upside the head every time I stepped out of line.  I would never understand His love, a love that would sacrifice its BEST, had Jesus not come.   

There would be no intimacy with my Heavenly Father, no sweet awareness of His nearness.

BUT Jesus HAS come and His coming fills me with a CONFIDENT hope!

Living within me by His Spirit, He fills me with peace, comfort, the companionship of His presence, power for living a godly life.  I never again need to walk the tenuous balance between doing good, and not doing bad, to gain God’s approval.  I already have it.  It was made mine thorough faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Forgiveness for the sin that still so easily besets me, is just a prayer away.

When the sorrows and challenges of this world threaten to overwhelm me, I can rest in God’s sovereignty and trust His promise that “ALL things work together for (my good)”, because He is FOR me.

All my guilt has been removed.  Jesus has paid for my sin IN FULL.

This world with its joys, and also its heavy sorrows, is not my final destiny. Heaven is my home.  On the day that I enter its gates, the presence of sin – in me and in my environment – will be a thing of the past.  The Lord Jesus will rule in righteousness and I will know fullness of joy when I SEE Him face to face!  On that day, when I leave this life for the next, Jesus will welcome me home! 

One day, my body, which has been so ravaged by sin will be glorified.  No sin, no sickness, no death, no crying, no sorrow!   The sting of death, and its victory over me, has been won by my victorious Savior! 

Jesus HAS come and His coming has made ALL the difference in my life.  Confident, expectant hope is the hallmark of my faith!