The first evidence God presents to help us know we have eternal life in his Son is the testimony of changed lives, which began with John the Baptist telling people, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” Matthew 3:1-2.
And people “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole nation of Jordan” found themselves doing just that – they repented – “confessing their sins” (5-6), burying their past in baptism, and wanting to gear their lives to “fulfilling all righteousness,” as Jesus put it in verse 15, meaning live totally from that point on as God would want them to.
All of which God got started in people through John in preparation for the arrival of his Son (3), because this would be his first real, live evidence (or testimony) of what he’d sent his Son for, to get us humans on the path to eternal life in our lives now by this amazing new desire we find in ourselves to tune our lives to him.
And it’s all God’s doing. It was he who got John the Baptist yelling out to people in Luke 3:9 that “every tree not producing good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Because that’s what got their attention in their terms back then to set them on the path to eternal life – just like millions of people ever since who give their testimonies of how God got their attention, and the response it created in them.
And a response like those in John’s day too, who on hearing John found themselves humbly asking, “What should we do then?” Or like the people in Peter’s day, who on hearing from Peter in Acts 2:37 that they’d been complicit in killing Jesus (36), “were cut to the heart,” and they too asked, “What shall we do?”
And all beautifully crafted by God to get them started on the road to eternal life in their present lifetimes, and in such a way that looking back they’ll realize it was he who did it, because it was so perfectly tuned to their situation, just as it was in John’s day to get through to people then.
For some it’s sudden and dramatic, for others quiet and gradual, but God’s purpose is the same, to get us on the road to eternal life and to help us know we’re on it (1 John 5:13), by first of all bringing us to the point of repentance and wanting to change our lives, but also in “Knowing we’re forgiven”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 