June 14
I Kings 13-14
Psalm 72:1-7
Proverbs 15:29-30
Acts 10
Lord of All
“Then Peter began to speak, ‘Now I really understand that God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does righteousness is acceptable to Him. He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ---He is Lord of all.” Acts 10:34-36 HCSB
Satan is the father of lies. He excels at twisting the truth just a little bit so that it sounds true, but it is a complete lie. One of the lies that I hear a lot that is extremely deceiving is that Christianity is exclusive. They believe that since the Bible tells us that there is only one way to get to God, that it is excluding people. While that sounds like it may be true, it is not true at all. Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that He is “the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father, but by Him.” (NIV) It is true that there is only one way to get to God. There are not lots of paths. All religions do not ultimately lead to God. Any religion that does not claim that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, who came to Earth as a baby, lived a perfect life, gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins, was resurrected and now sits at the right hand of God is a false religion created by Satan to deceive. However, this verse in Acts 10, proves that Christianity is not exclusive. It is available to everyone, Jew, and Gentile, male and female, every race, every ethnicity. It is available to people from every country, every tribe and nation. The good news of peace through Jesus Christ is available to anyone who believes. He is Lord of all. The invitation is open to anyone. Not only is the invitation open to anyone, 2 Peter 3:9 tells us “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (HCSB) Jesus wants everyone to come to Him. He is patient and loving and merciful. He loves us and pursues us because He wants each of us to accept Him.
Our world is filled with lots of exclusive organizations, places, and groups. There are groups only available to men, or women, organizations that are only open to people of a certain race, places that are only open to people who meet their criteria and events that will not admit you if you don’t belong to a certain group of people. But Christianity is not like that. Anyone is welcome to come to Jesus. Unfortunately, there are some churches who do not exhibit this welcoming spirit and therefore do not reflect the message of Christ well, but that does not change the fact that Jesus does not turn any away who earnestly seek Him. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. No matter our gender, race, ethnic background, socioeconomic status, or any other criteria by which humans tend to divide themselves, Jesus’ invitation is the same to all of us. We can choose to reject His invitation, but that does not make it exclusive. Merriam Webster’s definition of exclusive is “excluding or not admitting other things, restricted or limited to the person, group or area concerned.”⁸ We must refute Satan’s lie with the truth that Jesus is Lord of all.
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