Our Warrior King

God, who created you specifically as a warrior to fight against the darkness in this world, wants you to meet His warrior son Jesus and follow Him as your king into battle.  And if that description of Jesus doesn’t match what you’ve heard about Him, please allow me to show you the fierce side of Jesus.

Let’s start where the story starts.  In the beginning, God created humans and the universe for us to live in.  He gave us, His children, the choice to join the family and recognize Him as our Father (or not).  He knew that some would want to and some wouldn’t.  God wants us to be in a close relationship with Him as daughters and sons; but, when we use our free will to do bad things, (like deception, violence, hatred, selfishness, and manipulation) it creates a distance between a perfectly good God and His imperfect children (us).  That’s where we had a problem.   God is not only perfectly good but perfectly just.  How do we make amends with God and have the bad things that we do forgiven when justice must be served?

This is where Jesus the Warrior King enters the story.  Jesus, God’s son, agreed to be born as a human, live a perfectly good life (without ever doing evil against the Father even once), and then suffer a horrible death... in order to take all of humanity’s punishment on Himself.   Since He didn’t have any evil of His own to be punished for, He could make amends for ours.  What a sacrifice!  Then two days after he was killed, God brought Jesus back to life.  God’s champion, His son, was rewarded with the authority to reign over all creation as its new king (for eternity).  

The Bible records Jesus telling his followers that He could have called down legions of angels to stop what was going to happen to Him on the cross; but, He chose to save US rather than save Himself.  WOW! He knew the mission was worth the cost. YOU WERE WORTH THE COST!

Jesus bought our freedom by shedding his own blood.  BUT, it only counts for each of us individually if we accept and follow Jesus as OUR King.  ONLY through Jesus can we be pardoned for crimes that separate us from God.  Jesus was the fiercest freedom fighter the world will ever see.  Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, for me, for YOU (God’s sons and daughters) so we could enter The family FULLY forgiven.

And long term... being in God’s family is a BIG deal.  You see, we are each created as eternal beings and there are only two locations where we can spend eternity after we are done with our time on the earth… heaven or hell.  Those in God’s family will join God in heaven (and it’s going to be awesome).  Those that don’t want to spend eternity in God’s family, won’t have to.  Unfortunately, hell was created as a place to banish Satan and the demons who rebelled against God so it’s not going to be such a nice place to be.  God isn’t going to “send” anyone to hell.  It’ll be by each person’s choice.

If you think you’re “too bad” or have done too many bad things to enter God’s Kingdom, you’re wrong.  EVERYTHING you’ve ever done can be forgiven.  Many of the Bible’s heroes, men and women that God used for great things, were thieves, liars, murderers, cowards, manipulators, and bullies.  Jesus’ sacrifice was for EVERYONE, absolutely NO exceptions.  

If you think that you’re “good enough” or have done enough good things to enter God’s Kingdom, you’re also wrong.  The Bible says that heaven is only for the PERFECTLY good and we’ve all done bad things. We’ve ALL made mistakes.  If you’ve ever lied or talked badly about someone or looked lustfully at someone that’s not your spouse... and of course we’ve all done those things (maybe several of them today), you’re not “good enough”.   We ALL have dirt on our hands.  Only Jesus was perfectly good; and, that’s why NO ONE gets into heaven without accepting His payment for our evil deeds.  

What true warrior wouldn’t follow a king willing to suffer and die for His people?  A king who, the Bible says, will return to the earth one day soon to eliminate evil and bring justice to the entire earth? We follow such a king, THE Warrior King Jesus, and you should too.

God is on the move.  His kingdom is advancing.  You can make a real difference and be a part of something bigger than yourself.   Watch the next (and last) video in the series for a recap and the chance for you to respond to the King’s call.