Putting God On Probation

When Jacob's parents bade him to go to Haran to get a wife, he had a dream of a ladder leading to heaven. He was thoroughly awed by this dream but did Jacob accept God straightaway? No. Instead, he set God a KPI.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you." (Genesis 28:20-22 ESV)

Did God respect Jacob's KPI? 

Man Sought Their Own Righteousness

Because they were ignorant of God's righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. (Romans 10:3 BSB)

For they don't understand God's way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God's way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. (Romans 10:3 NLT)

Men were ignorant of God's righteousness. They sought to establish their own standard of righteousness and they created many religions.

Seventy Weeks

Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince (מָשִׁ֣יחַ נָגִ֔יד mā-šî-aḥ nā-ḡîḏ), there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeksh the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed. And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him." (Daniel 9:24-27 BSB)

Bible prophecy is very focused. It is about Yeshua Hamashiach and Israel. The theme of the Bible is about God and what He do for Israel. The seventy weeks of Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) gave a broad outline of what will happen to Israel and its King, Yeshua Hamashiach. It is foundational to our understanding of the sequence of events that will happen to Israel.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! Look, your King is coming to you; he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9 CSB)

The God of Jacob

Esau replied, "Is he not rightly named Jacob (the supplanter)? For he has supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. Have you not reserved a blessing for me?" (Genesis 27:36 Amplified Bible)

I was glad that I am not a righteous man with a strong sense of justice. When I read how God allowed Jacob to steal Esau's blessings, I did not say, "What kind of God is this, accepting the cheater and rejecting the cheated!" Instead, I said, "If God can accept Jacob, He can surely accept me!"

And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. (Luke 15:2 KJV)

Abraham Our Father In Faith

Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6 BSB)

What did Abram believe? He believed that God would make a great nation out of him. He believed and he became the father of all who believe.

Then the LORD said to Abram, "Leave your country, your kindred, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3 BSB)

Do we have something to believe like Abraham? Yes. God wants us to believe that we will reign with Him for a thousand years. Do we believe in this? Or do we believe in climate change and artificial intelligence and the end of the world? Things will get worse, but the world will not end. Ultimately, Jesus will come and rule.

Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6 BSB)

Be like Abraham. Believe in Him who is faithful.

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24 ESV) 

As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist. (Romans 4:17 BSB)

Christian Life - How to Keep It

There is a chapter in a book written by C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, where there is a chapter with the title, "Christians - Nice People or New Men". The link is a summary of the chapter and I think it is a good read for anyone who want to understand Christians.

I also quote from this sermon, "Sermon: C. S. Lewis on Christianity & atheism | Idler", which reflect on Christian life.

QUOTE
Do not think I am setting up baptism and belief and the Holy Communion as things that will do instead of your own attempts to copy Christ. Your natural life is derived from your parents; that does not mean it will stay there if you do nothing about it. You can lose it by neglect, or you can drive it away by committing suicide. You have to feed it and look after it: but always remember you are not making it, you are only keeping up a life you got from someone else. In the same way a Christian can lose the Christ-life which has been put into him, and he has to make efforts to keep it. But even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam-he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts. And that has practical consequences. As long as the natural life is in your body, it will do a lot towards repairing that body. Cut it, and up to a point it will heal, as a dead body would not. A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble - because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or - if they think there is not - at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.
UNQUOTE

In Death All Are Equal

One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease. His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow. Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity. But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both. (Job 21:23-26 BSB)

All men are equal at death. He might have been a rich man, a powerful dictator, a beggar, a murderer or claim to be a god, a buddha, a prophet or whatever, at death, they are all equal. They do not come back again. Almost nobody came back to prove that he is more equal than others. But there is one exception, only one who came back from death.

Today is Resurrection Sunday. We commemorate a unique event in history - the resurrection of Christ. All men are born of two parents and died. Jesus was uniquely born of a virgin, crucified to death, and then resurrected on the third day. This event serves as evidence of Jesus' divine nature, setting Him apart from others who simply made claims that they are gods or buddhas or some other supermen, without any proof to support them.

Why do we listen to men, born of one man and one woman, fusion of sperm and egg, who after speaking great things, claiming to be somebody great, die and return to dust, like all men before and after him? He who cannot conquer death is like me, and no better than me. Why should I listen to him?

Why not believe in the only one in the world, who was born of a virgin, died and was resurrected, and will be returning again? Believe in Him who had conquered death, proving Himself to be different from all men.

He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. (1 Corinthians 15:4 NLT)