To Encourage You

John 20:21-22 “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’”

What incredible things Jesus said to His disciples when He appeared to them after He arose from the grave.  First, to these who cowered in fear of the Jews who had killed Jesus, and who now stood face to face with the One they had abandoned in His greatest time of need, Jesus said “Peace.”  His message was one of forgiveness, and the awesome realization that those who have put their faith in Him have peace with God.  These things bring an inner peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).  What a message for these men who had, up until that moment, been gripped by anxiety and fear. 

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He says to them “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  In other words, Jesus was now sending them back out past their locked doors into the world that had hated Him so much that they had crucified Him.  And with this commission He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who would empower them for the task.  And why would He do this? So that His disciples could go throughout the world and preach the message of the forgiveness of sins.  What an incredible act of love this was.  Here He carried out further what He had said from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). 

One of the things Jesus had warned His followers about before He died on the cross was that “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you” (John 16:2-4). Yet, despite these facts, Jesus sent His followers into the world to preach forgiveness of sins.  As that most famous Bible verse says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And further “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).

This is the love of God that the world cannot comprehend. God loves the world so much that hates Him so much that He was willing to send His one and only Son to die for it.  And Jesus loves the world that crucified Him so much, that He was willing to send His followers, His spiritual brothers, into that same world with the message of the gospel even though He knew that many of them would die as a result. 

We see this powerfully worked out when, at Pentecost, Peter preached to the Jews who were assembled in Jerusalem. He made them aware of the terrible sin they had committed by slaying their very own Messiah. The message had a powerful effect as we see in the following account: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:37-41). 

So, what about you?  What’s your view of Jesus and this message of love and forgiveness?  Can you turn your back on such love? Are you in league with those who rejected Christ? Are you one with the God-hating world?  Or have you realized that despite your rejection of Him, God loved you enough to both send His Son to die for you, and to send people that love Him to you with that same message of love?  In the words of Jesus above, forgiveness is yours if you will but accept the message of the cross, but if you reject this message, the result, in the end, will be unforgiveness, and unforgiveness that you’ve, sadly, chosen for yourself.