Dear Struggler,
This is going to be a long letter but I beseech you to read every word of this. I am trusting God to use it and help you.
Easter is one remarkable season to Christian faithfuls as it commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Over the years, preachers and writers alike have done phenomenal jobs telling and retelling the story that can be referred to as a very important biblical folklore. This story took on a somewhat wider reaching dimension when it was told using motion pictures. One of those movies was “The Passion of The Christ”, which you must have watched.
Moving forward, I particularly at some point was a little concerned with the way this story was told over the years and its intended effect. At one time, this story becomes so compelling that it calls for sober reflections. At another time, it is told in a way that it scares people away from its true essence. I guess it must have covered you with goose pimples when it was told. Howbeit, this is the greatest story ever told.
I will not bore you with details because I assume you are conversant with this story; from the betrayal, to the arrest, to the denial, to the trial, to the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. You really did not need to have been born again to be able to tell that story. So I will not dwell here, I will move this thing forward.
Like you, I thought I was used to the story and all of its significance. But God set to show me a part of this love story that swept my feet off the ground. I never really paid attention to this part, but God took me there. It is found in Matt. 27:54 and I will quote from the New King James Version:
Now when the centurion and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the son of God.
I will come back to that text but, let me take you a little back in time to a board meeting Jesus had with His disciples in- Matt 16:13-19. By this time Jesus had done a lot of miracles at different times and places. He had taught the people things that were not conventional with the way the teachers of the law taught them. As a matter of fact, by this time, He had not told anyone yet who he really was. However, he knew (possibly by instinct) that people were saying a lot of things about Him. Here He was, trying to know who people are saying that He was.
This situation may not be a stranger to you. You do your best to keep abreast with the personality you put out with every rise in popularity. As you carry out your assignment and carry yourself as a Christian, somewhere in your mind you hope that people are seeing you for who you really are. You take out time to check on what people around you are saying about you. I am not saying it is a bad idea, even Jesus found Himself in that place where He wanted to know what people are saying about Him.
Well, Jesus’ survey showed that people where seeing him, not for who he really is but in the light of what they see him do. They saw Him as a prophet because they were used to prophets performing all manner of signs and wonders. They did not see Him as The Son of God. As a matter of fact, He was addressed as The Son of God on two occasions prior to this board meeting: The demons that possessed the Man at Gergesenes and the disciples when they saw Him walk on water. Outside the disciples, no other person saw Jesus as The Son of God (Even John, the Baptist, doubted the son-ship of Jesus at some point). When He declared it before the high priest, He was tagged as a blasphemer (Matt. 26:63-65). While on the cross, people mocked Him with it. His declaration of the truth that He was The Son of God was not enough to make the people other than His disciples believe it.
Let me take you back to the text. As I dwelt on this part of the greatest love story ever told, I could not help but ask:
WHY DID PEOPLE WAIT FOR JESUS TO DIE BEFORE ACKNOWLEDGING HIM AS THE SON OF GOD?
Is it not interesting that the Centurion and the other people around declared Jesus The Son of God just after He gave up the ghost?
I simply wrote this long letter to submit to you that your place in God can only be relevant to humanity if you can JUST DIE to yourself and be alive in God. That way, you neither need argue with people about who you are nor do a survey to know if people really get it that you are a Child of God. Jesus had to die to His flesh, when He gave up the ghost on the cross, for men who are without to come to know him as The Son of God that He is. I do not doubt that you have been born again, but yet people cannot identify you as such. JUST DIE to your flesh and be alive in Christ (Rom. 8:13-14, Col. 3:1-6).
As I drop my pen, I want to ask that you pass this letter to other people when you are done reading it. Understand that you are not the only one struggling right now, there are billions of people that needs this letter.
Thanks and God bless you.
Your friend,
Ibeh Uche Sam
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Christ a poet 