Speaker: Courtesy LHM

From the sound of the letter, Onesimus was once enslaved in Philemon’s household. He ran away—possibly stealing some money as well—and eventually wound up in contact with Paul in jail, who told him about Jesus. Onesimus became a believer.

This is a classic description of the mess that we are in as human beings. The choice is simple, isn’t it? Life or death. Love or hate. Loving the Lord, or living as His enemy. Not a hard choice, is it?

Hanging helpless on the cross, Jesus listened to scoffers mock Him as Messiah and Savior. Jesus took onto Himself the sins of the wicked, the sinners, and the scoffers. He took our sins into His own body and suffered the penalty of death that should have been ours.

This is no vain hope, my friend. It is no mirage. It is your destiny in Christ. Receive Him as your Savior and share in His glory. In Christ, God has something magnificent in store for you.

Everyone within earshot knows that they are Christians. Indeed, it is impossible to miss them—to judge from surface appearances, these people will be sitting right next to Jesus in His kingdom.

We may not get that job, no—but we discover that, with Him, our lives are good or better than if we had. We may not get the love and admiration of the people around us—or we may, which is a different problem.

God can. And that is why we would always be wiser to bring our fears and concerns to Him, the one Person who knows all things already, who will never pass on gossip and who will never do harm with what we tell Him.

Jesus, the greatest of all, the Son of God, humbled Himself to born among us. He became a child, the infant born in Bethlehem, a little child who knew what it was to feel calm and quiet in His mother’s arms.

“A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be doing and talking.” Death is the moment of truth, putting everything into its proper place. What seemed important before, suddenly becomes unimportant and inconsequential.