The one who set the standard

With the writings on this site and some of our others sites, like Stepping Toes, the Brethren in Christ and our ecclesia site, we would love to bring more people to come to know Who took care of all the beautiful things we can see around us and what promises where given to humankind.

With the postings you shall be able to find on this site and on the above mentioned, we do hope you and many other readers coming along here, shall come to see what a beautiful message is given to humankind.
In the past many men of God told about the wonders which came and still shall come onto the people who are willing to recognise their Creator.

On this and the other mentioned pages we do hope to give an idea of the many promises which also can become a reality for us. All of us can find a hope which is set before all of us. We only should be willing to come to see it and believe those things which have been told in the past.


Once you begin to appreciate the Hope God sets before us in His Word, you want to know how to lay hold of it. You realize as you read more, that He sets a standard for men to follow which you have not begun to reach. If you really want to please God, you will feel the need, like those men in Jerusalem, to have your conscience made clean. The way God has prescribed for us is to be baptised into the Lord Jesus, symbolically washing away in the waters our old life, and starting again as if we were newly born, members of God's holy people. Then, the New Testament insists, we shall be heirs of those promises of the Kingdom of God:

 "For in Christ Jesus", writes Paul, "you are all sons of God, through faith" (Galatians 3:26). 

Imagine that! What a privilege, to be called sons and daughters of God!

"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Galatians 3: 27-29).

All that Jesus inherits -- the land, the throne, the blessing-all will be ours. How exciting and moving it is, to think what God offers us. It is as if we are being introduced already to the new covenant God will make with His people. God's law is written on our heart, our sins are washed away, and we are enrolled for a place in that age when war and famine, sin and sorrow will be banished for ever from the earth. 

Paul uses another figure in Romans 11. He says we Gentile believers are like sprigs of a wild olive tree that have been picked up by God the gardener and grafted into the stem of the olive tree of Israel. We share the rich sap that keeps the life flowing, and we will be there in the time of harvest.

"I want you to understand this mystery brethren",

he says, as he explains the long gap between the two Comings:

"a hardening has come upon part of Israel".

He means that only a minority of the Jewish people accepted the good news Jesus and the apostles brought; the hearts of the rest were too hard for the good seed of the Kingdom to grow.
But Israel's hardness of heart is not for ever.

 "Until the full number of the Gentiles come in", he continues, "and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written"

  
-- and he quotes from one of the 'Messiah' passages in Isaiah -- 

"the Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them",

 he adds, repeating the passage we read from Jeremiah 33,

 "when I take away their sins" (Romans 11:24-27). 

Notice the time period-when the full number of the Gentiles has come in. It has not come in yet. God is still calling us to come into His family. But one day, soon, perhaps very soon, the door will be shut. The Lord Jesus will be here with power to rule over the nations, and bring men to judgement for despising God's laws. 

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