We are advertisement-besieged! Advertising for beauty and self-care products to vacation-of-a-lifetime cruises and everything in between. These promotional materials can appear on TV, radio, bumper stickers, highway billboards, those blown-in cards that fall, irritatingly, out of magazines, and, of course, all electronic media is awash in pop ups!
All of these are expensively crafted by advertising psychologists for maximum purchase persuasion. Beautiful people, impossibly happy, impeccably dressed, and accompanied by just the right music while shamelessly hawking the product which is the source of all the above. Some recent ‘spokespeople’ are talking geckos, ducks, bears, emus, and more. Worse, the claims made in each ad are so often grossly exaggerated (false?). The promises of lives transformed by the right facial cream, the right car, the right kitchen appliances, the right pet food, etc. end in our becoming jaded – especially after we’ve found those purchases wanting.
In stark contrast, Jesus’ promises to us are Yes! and Amen! There is no bait and switch in him. He always comes through. Nor does he omit the downside to our obediences. The consequences are all there, clearly, even graphically, spelled out. The result is that we can follow him, confident in the love that is always more than enough. In the roughest circumstances, in the ‘faith-testing-est’ trials, in the darkest of nights, there is Jesus, the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
As believers in Jesus, we’ve been made new creations ‘in Christ.’ And as the Apostle Paul explains, our old life governed by the flesh has gone, been defeated, annihilated. We have been raised to new life, a resurrected life, an ‘empowered by the Spirit’ life. As such, we’ve been commissioned as Kingdom Ambassadors: ‘. . . you will be my messengers to Jerusalem, the distant provinces – even to the remotest places on earth!’ Jesus in Acts 1:8, TPT. ‘You don’t belong to yourself any longer, for the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, lives inside your sanctuary. You were God’s expensive purchase, paid for with tears of blood, so by all means, then, use your body to bring glory to God.’ Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19,20, TPT. It’s such an incredibly beautiful privilege to give Jesus our ‘Yes!’ Looking forward to seeing all you committed, persevering Ambassadors tomorrow, 10 AM, 3 PM UK. PD
