To Encourage You

Hebrews 1:2 “In these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed the heir of all things.”

When you think of Jesus, how do you think of Him? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?  Do you envision Him as He was depicted in a movie you’ve seen, perhaps “Ben Hur,” or the much more recent series, “The Chosen”? Do you think of Him as a great moral teacher?  Do you think of Him in terms of the what the Bible calls Him; perhaps “Savior,” or “Son of God”?  Do you ever think of Him in terms of what the verse above says of Him, i.e., “the heir of all things”?  Do you realize what this term means?  In a nutshell, it tells us that everything is His. 

As I thought about that this morning, I thought about the curious account leading up to what we call “The Triumphal Entry” when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey just prior to His crucifixion.  Before this happened, Jesus told his disciples “’Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, “The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.”‘ And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go” (Mark 11:2-6).  You see, the “owner” of that colt understood that, in reality, it was the Lord’s colt, and not his. 

Do you know that you can send some money to the U.S. Star Registry, “buy” a star, and give it a name?  It’s actually pretty foolish when you think about it, for you see, it was Jesus Who made the stars. They’re His stars.  Long before the U.S. Star Registry, or the U.S., for that matter, existed, He already gave to all of them a name (Psalm 147:4). 

And then I thought about the account where the Pharisees were attempting to trap Jesus with their devious questions.  When they said to Him, “’Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?’. . . Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away” (Matthew 22:17-22).  

What Jesus was saying to them, what so stunned them, was how He turned the question around on them.  You see, just as the coin that had the image of Caesar on it came from Caesar and was, in essence, his, so each and every one of us who have been made in the image of God, came from Him, and whether we realize it or not, we are His.  He is our Lord. As Mary said to the angel at the prophecy of Jesus’ birth, each and every one of us should say, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

You see, He is the heir.  Everything is His.  Our house is His. Our car is His. Our money is His.  For those of us who hunt, fish, or bird watch, do you realize that He has told us, “every beast of the forest is mine,” and to the farmers, so are “the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10).  He has reminded us that “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” (Psalm 50:12). 

So, is that how you see Him?  Do you hold on to your “stuff” with a tight-fingered grip, or are you ready to give it to Him and yield it to His use if He asks it of you?  More than that, do you realize that, if you are a Christian, “It is He who made us, and we are his; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).  Do you see Him like this? Do you see yourself like this? 

That’s why greed and coveting are such sins as well as theft.  These are not just sins against the person we inflict them upon, they are sins against God’s Son, Who owns all.   We are His stewards and one day we will all give an account for the things He has given us (Matthew 25:14-30).  But beyond this, these are such foolish sins.  You see, the believer shouldn’t be fixated on “getting” but on “giving.” He or she should be always ready to cheerfully give.  The truth is that no matter how much we should give of what is “ours,” wonderfully, we can never by any stretch of the imagination out give our Lord.  You see, He gave His very life to us when He died on the cross. Wonderfully, the Bible tells us that “the Lord is our chosen portion” (Psalm 16:5), i.e., He is our inheritance.  We are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). And He is all any of us will ever need. 

Such an awesome and glorious truth, about our awesome and glorious God: Jesus, the Son and the heir of all things.