I have always liked the saying, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and that certainly is the case in regards to checking the statements in this book. If wrong or fictitious you are still you, and you can still do what you want, when you want, but if they are attached to reality and there appears to be a high likelihood of a tangible truth to life, check for yourself. I think, if you do genuinely check this information it will prove to be a great time of your life, not just because you checked but that the potential of doing so literally could make you a partaker of the Kingdom that will have no end.

At the very beginning of the Bible we are told that God made the earth (and everything else) in 6 days and then rested on the 7th day. Interestingly the Hebrew word used for Day is not necessarily restricted to an exact 24 hrs period it can also mean a period of time, which could be a long period of time.

What I also think is of interest is a comment made in 2nd Peter 3:8 that is in reference to prophesy, it says that we should not be ignorant of this ONE thing, that with the Lord a day is as 1000 years and 1000 years is as a day….and you say what is so interesting about that, which is fair enough, but let me explain.

Firstly, in the Book of Revelation, the comment is made that after the Return of Christ, he will reign for 1000 years, and as we read in Genesis that God worked for 6 Days, then rested for one day (1000 years), so if God rested on the seventh day, it is reasonable to say that the 6 days of work could be interpreted as 6000 years… and we are almost at 6000 yrs from the fall (not birth) of Adam.

God has endured working with Mankind for approximately that time and look where it has got us, we are destroying our planet, polluting our air, killing our sea and we have enough nuclear arms stockpiled we can destroy ourselves 100’s of times over, we have 1% of the world’s population holding on to (and wanting more) 99% of the world’s wealth. 18000 of our fellowman die every day of poverty/starvation and none of those very serious situations are changing for better. As if that isn’t enough, in that 6000 years God actually allowed his Son to come to the earth and put on display the potential of life, if wanting to please God as Jesus did, and what did we (mankind) do, we betrayed him, we mocked him, we humiliated him and then we killed him. You know the rest of the story but what I want to emphasise is that time is up, cliché or not, the end is nigh. 6000 years or there about, is enough.

Why have we botched up what was so good? It’s a question that we should ask ourselves: how have we turned paradise into what we have now? And for all the lessons we could have, and should have learned, why is the earth in the most precarious state it has ever been in? Is there anybody who truly knows? I actually think there is, but it’s not, yet another opinion of mere person, it’s an opinion from God, absolutely 100% true and absolutely 100% right, and it is found in the depths of the Book of Jeremiah in chapter 17. The problem seems to be how we think, our heart (mind) is deceitful the Bible says, above ALL things and it is desperately wicked, who can know it. Strong words for sure, but only written that we might understand that we need a Spiritual heart transplant, a new way of thinking where God’s opinion is respected and appreciated. 

The problem that we are all born with is the way that our mind thinks and how it demands our full allegiance. Unfortunately our mind gets so locked into the Here and Now, it unwittingly neglects to inform us of the potential effects of decisions we make, and as a result we can find ourselves in realms of regret, whether it be a personal or international situation. We are informed in the Book of Jeremiah that the knowledge of Man is brutish, or foolish, in the sense that it neglects to evaluate the ramification of actions, all too often not honestly assessing the bigger (and more important) picture, and that is the problem that God is at war with and that is the problem that Jesus died to rectify.

It is written in The Proverbs, that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he, and although we can get some decisions right as we live our life, far more often than not, we don’t get our decisions right in relation to God, and it is the same old problem, we often don’t assess the potential of the decisions we accept. It’s like with the problems our planet is experiencing now, we wouldn’t have embraced splitting the atom had we fully known the dramas it is now causing, we wouldn’t have continued with deforestation or allowing the radical reduction of fish stocks or the polluting of our air and sea or the manufacture of in disposable plastic etc etc had we known the potential damage it has caused and continues to cause. It is the same on a personal basis, we wouldn’t have made decisions that bought regret and hurt to our life, we just weren’t as smart as we could have been. The great moral for life is, look before you leap, assess the ramifications before you commit. The other saying that holds some clout is, fools rush in where angels fear to tread….Be Careful!!!

One person, for whom I have the greatest admiration, is Jesus Christ, he was a great assessor of potential, he thought on a better level than us mere mortals and as a result death could not hold him. What is amazing is that if we assess the potential of options that are placed before us, we too can enter the realm of where death cannot hold us. 

I have no idea as to how many decisions the average person makes in their lifetime, but it would be a lot, and of them all I can say with absolute certainty that of the billions of your decisions, none will compare in importance to what you decide in regards to, who was Jesus Christ? why did he ALLOW himself to be crucified? Was his tomb empty 3 days after having been slaughtered? And, did he fellowship with the disciples for approximately 40 days after being raised from the dead, stressing the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit. These decisions, for us are colossal, the big picture is so big it embraces becoming part of a kingdom that we can enter, the kingdom that will be forever that Daniel spoke of, the kingdom where there will be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more crying or death, and as mentioned earlier, a place where God himself will wipe away all tears. 

One day, almost 2000 years ago, Jesus trekked to the River Jordan to be baptised (by full immersion) by John the Baptist, he could have been doing a lot of things at that time of his life, but he assessed the potential of what was on offer and went for the very best, he got baptised and as a result of that simple act he received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God that is eternal, the Spirit of God made the heavens and the earth. The Spirit that strengthened Jesus to do what he did and the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead…Jesus knew the potential of his decision to be Baptised and reaped the benefits.

The thing is, we too are encouraged (and it does take courage) to be baptised as Jesus was, but, as crazy as it sounds, we, because of suspect assessment, more often than not look for excuses as to why we shouldn’t rather than reasons for why we should. We can be just soooo dumb. Like mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, this is a, everything to gain, nothing to lose scenario, and yet we still avoid. It was a good friend who convinced me to be Baptised, who assisted me to grasp that I had nothing to lose (and heaps to gain) who told me just that, and amazingly, only 3 days after I actually received the Holy Spirit just as they did in the Bible (the same way as recorded in Acts chapters 2, 10 and 19). Being baptized transformed my life, and more to the point, my thinking. 

The life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus is without any doubt, the focus of Bible prophecy, the Holy Spirit that anointed different people, at different times, to prophecy of future events was mesmerized by who Christ was and what he was to going to achieve for mankind.

In Ezekiel chapter11 it says God will give (it’s a gift) a new heart, a new SPIRIT within you, God says our stony (brutish) heart will be replaced with a NEW heart, that will enable HIS people to keep his statutes and ordinances and find it a pleasure to uphold them, and then God says the most incredible thing, saying they will be his People and he will be their God. And that is why we all need to Receive the Holy Spirit, to get a new heart, a heart that won’t lose focus of the big picture. A heart that won’t forget, if God says something will happen, it WILL happen.

That is why Jesus was so motivated to die for mankind, that is why he talked about the Holy Spirit so often, especially as he walked to Gethsemene (John14-15-16) he was on a mission and where every human would have failed, he DIDN’T, even after his Resurrection he emphasied the need for this magnificent miracle, and then in Acts 2 it happened to the disciples and the others (120 total) and they spoke in an unknown Language (tongues) as the outward proof, the same happened in Acts10 and also in Acts19 and it is still happening today, and is available for every person…Check Acts2:38 it is critical.

When you get a new heart you realise very quickly that God wants to bless your life, he heals physically, he heals mentally and he heals Spiritually, his commitment is permanent, not to the end of this life permanent, but with you forever permanent. Something about God that we do well to know is that he HATES death, and he hates it with a passion, that is one of the main reasons why Jesus died, he died for us so that death will not be our end. We may think the account of the Fall of Man in Genesis, is too simplistic to be real, but whether we believe it or not, the warning given by God to Adam has become a stark reality, he said we would surely die, (if we choose to allow our life to be consumed with whether we think a issue is Good or Evil) and because did, we surely die. At this time in our world, 2 people die every second, 120 every minute, which equates to 172000 people every day. Because we know no better, we sort of accept, such is life, but thankfully, God does not accept such rubbish, as mentioned in this book many times. God wants us to beat the grave, to be part of his Kingdom without end, he wants us to witness his redemption of Abraham’s descendants, the new heaven and new earth, the abolition of death, and what most likely will be the best of that is offered, to talk with Jesus Christ face to face and to thank him for seeing us as a treasure, I cannot imagine how good that will be, but because of what happened with Daniel’s prophecy, Babylon, Tyre, The first coming of Christ and now the perplexity of what, today, is happening to our planet, I am extremely confident, IT WILL BE. 

And if there is any likelihood of these amazing events coming to pass, we should, at the very least, be sensible. Advice from the Bible is offered to all to embrace, we are informed that, it is folly (brutish) for a man to answer a matter before he HEARS it, there is no wisdom in giving this challenge the quick flick, this is unspeakably important for all of us and we owe it to our soul to check it unbiasedly, with a reasonable humility.

In the first chapter of the Book of Isaiah, God graciously speaks to his people Israel, who had gone, quite radically astray, saying what he also says to us…Come now, and let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool…This is how God is, this is how he wants to be with everybody, he had every right to rip into them and tell them they were a bunch of losers, but he didn’t, he wanted the best for them and overlooked justified anger to graciously be their saviour, just as he does to us, today…The Word of God reminds us of this truth, God so loved the World (yes this Truth and God rejecting world) that HE GAVE his only begotten Son, who died for us. Now he says to us all, come, let us reason together, he who ever-lives and who made the universe beckons us to him to reason together, yes together, he has an interest in your viewpoint. 

And lastly for this chapter, it behoves us to be soothed by the lovely words spoken for us by Jesus himself, recorded in Matthew 11… he said, Come unto me, ALL ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I WILL give you rest. Take my yoke (of safety) upon you and LEARN of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find REST unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light…

Come and learn of him who died for you, learn of the Truth of life, the truth we all need to know, YOU are precious to God, period, and he wants you to live forever, period, and never let our dying world of vanity erased from your mind, that the creator of the universe wants to be your best friend, not cliché best friend, but rather fully legitimate never fail you, best friend.