Like a Good Shepherd, Jesus Is Here!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<Jesus said during His Sermon on the Mount to the people,> “(33) But seek first <God’s> kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (34) Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ (Matthew 6:33-34)
Why do we need insurance? Insurance is a means to provide recovery from a loss. We often think of insurance in terms of ‘big’ or ‘expensive’; we insure our homes and our cars, our health and dental, and even our life (or the life of our spouse). Insurance is a ‘just-in-case’ pillow we pray we never need to use, but (hopefully) it is there when we need it. Insurance comes from us being risk-adverse, as we humans are not fond of the idea of unforeseen circumstances taking away what we currently possess. If we get into a car accident, we have insurance (and if involving another driver, it is hoped they have insurance) to either repair our vehicle to get it back running as good as it was before the accident, or to receive a reimbursement to obtain a new (or new-to-us) car to get back on the road.
Jesus is not in the insurance business. He is not selling ‘just-in-case’ coverage, or ‘just-as-good’ repair or replacement of anything you’ve lost. What then, does Jesus provide for us? Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, provides us with ‘assurance’, namely ‘blessed assurance’. Jesus is in the ‘assurance’ business. It is more than insurance as He provides us something we don’t have to begin with – Salvation. He cannot insure that which we don’t have to begin with; you don’t have car insurance without a car, for example. What He provide is the fulfillment of a promise, a convenient made by God that a Messiah, a Shepherd, would come to lead those who follow Him to Life Eternal with Him.
Assurance is a guarantee a promise is kept and delivered. Jesus assures us of God’s unbounding love through His gift of His only begotten son, that only through accepting Jesus as Lord and our only path to Salvation can we be assured of our place at the Lamb’s Table. This assurance cannot be broken, nor can it be bartered or reasoned away; there is no ‘yeah, but’ for the Christian who earnestly in Faith has accepted Jesus as Lord – Jesus said your sins are forgiven, that you have Eternal Life with Him – there is not exclusionary clause that gives an ‘except for’ reason to be rejected once you accept.
There is unfortunately an assurance given by Jesus for those who do not accept Him. Failure to accept Jesus is rejecting the gift God has given us, and in turn those who reject Him are assurance a different fate, Eternal separation apart from God in Hell, or the Lake of Fire. The assurance of this separation is that it will not be a gathering but one of solitary confinement for all Eternity. The true torment for those eternally separated is the assurance of the choice one made not to follow Christ and accept Him as Lord, and fate of no escape.
We who are Christians need to follow the Great Commission, and work as ‘assurance agents’ to provide the Gospel message to those who have yet to respond, so that they may not worry about tomorrow but first seek the Lord and receive His gift today!
