Day: January 25, 2009

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

Isaiah 53:1 (NIV)
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD [Yahweh] been revealed?

The above verse is set amidst the classic Messianic section of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, which graphically depicts the suffering (the “passion”) that Jesus would have to endure in order to fulfill his mission as the Redeemer of mankind. His being figuratively referred to as the “arm of the Lord” is most significant.

God is spirit (John 4:24), and therefore has no arms, literally speaking. Being invisible, God needed a human representative who could, if he would, conduct his life so as to make Him known to a world of people oriented to what they could see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. We now know that Jesus of Nazareth was that man.

Chapter 12 of our book, One God & One Lord is titled “God’s Namesake in Action”. It shows how Jesus is named after his Father, and how, in his ministry on earth among mankind, much of what Jesus did re-presented what God had done for His people in the Old Testament as “the LORD who provides,” “the LORD who heals,” etc. It also shows that the work Jesus did on earth was a “preview of coming attractions,” that is, a taste of what he will do as “King” in the future Millennial Kingdom.

It is now in his exalted and expanded ministry to Christians as “Lord” and “Head of the Body, the Church,” that Jesus is functioning as God’s “right hand man” in a far greater capacity than he did when he was on earth. Each member of the Body of Christ can count on the Lord Jesus doing for him what he did when he walked the earth.

Let us consider that relatively brief period of time when Jesus carried out the job God set before him as the Redeemer of mankind. As the Son of God, “The Man” who was to perfectly re-present his heavenly Father to a dying world, Jesus was busy. He had places to go and people to see. He had much work to do, and not much time to do it. In that vein, the following verse is pertinent:

John 5:17
Jesus said to them [the Jews who were persecuting him], “My Father is always at work [un]to this very day, and I, too, am working.”

Jesus was saying that the work God had done from Genesis until that time was to make it possible for him to be born and have the opportunity to carry out his ministry as the Savior of man—and that now it was his turn to work. What “work” had Jesus just done? He had healed a lame man, like God healed people in the Old Testament.

It is most significant that the Old Testament was written primarily for Jesus. Yes, because Genesis through Malachi was his “ID,” if you will, telling him who he was (the promised “seed of the woman,” etc). It was also the “blueprint” for his life—and his gruesome death. And it was also his motivation to go all the way through the Cross, because in reading about many men and women who gave their lives for their belief in his coming as the Messiah, he became determined not to let them down.

The Old Testament was also his “coupon” for the kingship of the world that would be his if he fulfilled his mission. That was “the joy set before him” that enabled him to “endure the Cross.” So when you read the Old Testament, ask yourself what Jesus could have learned from what you are reading.

Read entire article here.

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.