Did you know that God has a great offer for you? It’s something beautiful and something amazing, a great invitation… and God specifically wants to give it to you. He instructed us to share this with everyone we can find. He has a great banquet of blessings to offer.
God offers amnesty to every person who is a rebel against Him, regardless of how terrible or nice. God is willing to completely wipe out all your debts to Him. He promises to clean the record entirely of any accusation against you, and he will restore the relationship between you and Him – forever. This offer is available now, but for a limited time. He is calling, asking us to listen to his free offer of amnesty, through Jesus.
Jesus is calling out, inviting all to receive this and He’s eager that you would take up this incredible offer as soon as possible. In exchange, God will transform you from a creature of darkness to be a creature of light, from the inside out. To receive this incredible offer, you must turn to Jesus the Resurrected Messiah King, that God the Father sent to earth in ancient times, who was crucified and rose again from the dead.
You see, our entire race committed treason against God long ago. And even the best among us are still children of that treasonous rebel race. None of us can claim otherwise. We all rejected Him and chose to go our own way. Nothing has changed for us since the beginning. But God who is rich in mercy is changing it for any who receive his offer of amnesty.
This is the message that Jesus of Nazareth brought to the world:
He was authorized to bring great news from the throne of God, to every one of us who have rebelled.
Jesus specifically promised he was sent to proclaim total amnesty to all of us poor rebel traitors. He said in Luke chapter 4 that He brings:
- Great news to all who are impoverished by sin
- Healing to all with broken souls
- Perfect Liberty to the captives of the kingdom of darkness
- New vision to see as God sees, for us who are blinded by spiritual darkness
- Full freedom to all who are oppressed by God’s enemy
- Acceptance by God, by the canceling of all debt, and restoration of the lost inheritance.
This is the sweet spirit of amnesty and refreshing that Jesus came to offer us all today.
Jesus is urging you. Don’t miss the offer of amnesty. Now is the time. Today is the day of God’s extreme kindness. Amnesty is offered, if you will accept it.
To understand the true value of this offer, we have to consider how serious of a situation this is.
Many people scoff at the idea of judgment from God; of Hell, or any kind of eternal suffering. Some people think evil is cool, that the devil is a joke, and that Hell is a party. But that’s all a lie.
Most of us don’t think that we are actually evil. But we have to see this from God’s perspective. He gave us perfection, but we spat at him. We blame him, but really all of the suffering and misery of this world is our fault. Some of us know we’re rebels, but we don’t know a way to fix it. God has made a way.
There are two things we have to understand before we can get this problem fixed:
- Our whole race has offended the kindest, most generous and loving being that exists; the one who is called the creator God. We have rejected Him, destroying ourselves and the world he gave us.
- The problem is too big for us to fix by ourselves. Only God Himself can do it.
God has said about the entire human race:
“…All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23)
- “...there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right…” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)
- “...all, like sheep, have gone astray…” (Isaiah 53:6)
- “…the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)
These verses capture the severity of our problem in summary. And by the way, it’s a problem everybody has. Our entire race. None of us can hide from it. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God and every single one of them since then has also rebelled against him. We have collectively sold ourselves into spiritual slavery to the kingdom of darkness. At the start, mankind experienced spiritual death; being cut off from the beautiful light of God’s perfection. All people since then have been spiritually dead, truly cut off from the perfection of God’s divine life giving spirit. We have physical life and souls, but we are members of a fallen race, and are therefore subjects of the kingdom of fallen angels ever since.
This is not a small problem because God pronounced judgment and will destroy the fallen kingdom, in due time. He has already pronounced the sentence, a judicial condemnation. But he has held back from pronouncing the sentence upon us yet, because He is not willing to condemn anyone who will turn to Him.
God is rich in mercy. So rich in mercy that He has a plan to rescue fallen humans and restore us to the perfection He had always intended for us, from the start. You see, the second half of that verse in Romans 6:23 gives us the clue:
- “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
So, God has a free gift that he wants to give us. The kind of divine life that our first parents surrendered long ago. The kind of divine life that none of us was born with. I know you probably never heard that before. But, listen, I didn’t come up with that idea. God did. You’re probably wondering whether there’s a catch, a trick here. No catch. No trick. Very plainly God is offering amnesty to human rebels! He has a whole-package-offer for us, available to every member of our race. And if you think about it, it has to be a whole package. It would never work to give us temporary amnesty, temporary forgiveness, temporary restoration. Because we rebels would just go right back to our rebellion against God, and hate him twice as much for it. So, it’s an exchange. He is willing to give us what we never had, and can never earn. We just have to let go of what we can’t keep anyway.
This is the problem with religion, by the way; It can’t solve the conundrum of our rebel hearts.
God’s a whole package offer comes to this, Jesus said:
- “…You must be born again…” (John 3:7)
In fact, Jesus said:
- “…unless one is born again, he cannot even see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Now, that’s as amazing as the offer of amnesty itself. Because it means that God isn’t just washing up the old life. He’s offering a whole new life; an entire restart, which is to have a restored spiritual life and relationship with God that we never had to start with. It’s not just a second chance, it’s a forever reboot. It’s a completely new operating system that doesn’t have the flaws of the first one. And the best part is that the new operating system stays in perfect update with our creator through Jesus, the resurrected Messiah.
Now, if you’re like me, when I first heard about this amnesty, you may be asking: How do I get this amnesty? Where do I go? What will it cost? What’s the way to receive it? Jesus has already told us:
- “I am the way…” (John 14:6)
So, we want to rest assured that we can find the way, the way is available. But there’s really good news because the whole of what Jesus said there is:
- “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me”
There is a way, there is truth, there is life. It’s everlasting life; indestructible life. It’s a narrow way, through a single door. But the great news is that the Father in Heaven made a wide open way, an entirely open door through Jesus, who is that way, that truth and that life. He’s made it clear and simple. And Jesus has already said that He came to give us life, full, abundant, enduring life in our spirit.
But why? How is that possible? How can one man offer that? It’s a matter of his indestructible life and it’s a matter of Heaven’s legal judgment and due process. You see, God did not want to leave our race to the realm of spiritual death or condemnation of the final judgment. He made a way to legally absolve our sin, a way to legally offer us amnesty. And it’s sort of like Double Jeopardy. Anyone who has ever served a prison term in the USA knows that there is a rule called Double Jeopardy; which means that you can’t serve a prison term twice for the same crime. Once it’s served, it’s over.
And that rule even goes so far as to say that once you have served that sentence, if you were later found innocent of that crime somehow, that you could then commit that exact crime and not have to serve a single day in prison for it. There was a popular movie made about this topic back in 1999 called “double jeopardy”, about this fact of the law. But not many people realize that this is true of spiritual law also.
Once a spiritual crime is paid for, there is no further debt; the judgment is satisfied. Because of this, it was possible for Jesus to pay our debt and pass that Satisfaction of Judgment onward. You see, Jesus was completely innocent. He never committed any crime. The Roman governor put Jesus on trial and found that he was not guilty of any crime. The vassal King Herod examined him and said he did not find him guilty. The only thing the religious rulers of Judah found in their tribunal was that he claimed to be the very son of God, as the Book of Daniel said the Messiah would be. That would only be a sin, if he wasn’t the Messiah that Daniel speaks of. Yet, they demanded his crucifixion anyway.
Most importantly: He never sinned against God. So, his death on that bloody cross was a judgment, a judicial punishment, for a crime he did not commit. God told us in advance that He was satisfied with the punishment that Jesus endured as a payment for the sins of all who ever rebelled (Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12, and Daniel 9:26). Now because He did not commit the crime, he can offer that satisfaction of judgment to anyone who will receive it. In other words, we can receive His amnesty and are eligible to actually receive the perfect relationship with God that Jesus had, for free. Because Jesus was condemned and punished in our place.
You might ask: “how can one man pay the penalty for all?” And the truth is that no ordinary man could pay the spiritual penalty, not for even one other man. Not even a brother for a brother. Because all of us are mortals, and all of us have sinned. But neither of those things is true of Jesus. He is not mortal, He is the eternal God. He is also not a sinner, but is forever righteous and just. So, as an eternal being with no sin, He did pay the debt for all. Since the debt was paid, He wants to give it to all who will receive it. Not only did he pay that debt on that ugly Roman cross, but he was buried and rose again to eternal life on the 3rd day.
The cross proves to us that he was human; entirely able to be a redeemer of humans as a living human soul. The empty tomb proves to us He is God; an indestructible life that could not be kept in death. Now because he offers life to us, it’s not merely this life, but indestructible life as redeemed people – fully paid for by his sacrifice.
We are truly offered something that cannot be ignored. This is so important, that Jesus reiterates this message over and over, even to the end of the Bible. It says in Revelation 3:20-22:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear…”
Jesus is calling us to receive Him, to open our lives to Him. If we do so, then we begin the path of being overcomers; those who are no longer subjects of the kingdom of this present darkness. To us who turn to him and trust Him, Jesus makes the promise to honor us, to welcome us even to sit with Him at His throne. Not merely saved, but honored to a level above the angels.
So, how do we take hold of this amnesty?
Jesus said:
“whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it…”
First we need to realize that this is an exchange. We let go of the old life to receive a new life by faith. Being born again is about receiving the Life Giving Spirit from God. All we bring to the table, even the best of what we have, is spiritual poverty.
We don’t really bring anything but willingness. When a baby is born, it has nothing; All it can do is be flexible. Mom does all the work. Mom gives birth out of love. So it is with God. God does the work, entirely out of love. The baby receives the new birth life, because the old life was unsustainable; a baby that stays in the womb will die. It’s the same way with our old spiritual life: if we don’t come out of the old and into the new, we die. But coming into the new and breathing the life giving spirit of God, we live and breathe and experience everything anew.
God has a breath from Heaven for us. If we are flexible, and say yes to Jesus, God will breathe his Spirit into us, in the same way a mother breathes life into her new born as it arrives. God greatly desires us to be born of His Spirit, the same way a mother desires her baby to come forth and breathe life in this world. This is the invitation: a whole new life.
What must a person do to be saved? You have no offering but yourself. A new baby does not pay it’s mother for being born. The only gift the child brings is itself becoming alive.
The challenge for each rebel today is to say: “Jesus, I am willing. Father, I want to come alive in your spirit. Please give me the faith to trust Jesus, to believe what you have said.”
Then comes the growth process
That is what Jesus taught in his ministry, for how to live that new life:
- Turn to God and seek Him. Let him change your mind about who you are and who He is.
- Believe God’s Great News (the Gospel) and be converted from old creature to new creature.
- Follow Jesus, he will train you to partner with Him & do something beautiful out of your life.
- Ask God to heal your “sin-wound” to your soul, to restore you & make you alive in His Spirit.
- Become a listener, hearing all that Jesus teaches, receiving daily nourishment for your soul.
- Trust that God provides your needs in any circumstances as you do what Jesus teaches.
- Rest in the confidence that Jesus refreshes and restores your soul, against every trial.
- Become an agent of blessing, who shares with others all that Jesus blessed you with.
- Become equipped against the attacks of evil, with the power of His spirit through prayer.
- Discover how to be supplied from Heaven for overcoming all the challenges of this life.
- Live out the Heavenly identity of Christ that you were created to be.
- Take hold of the great promises of God that Jesus has given.
Turn to Jesus, in total abandonment of the broken life, and accept all that He wants to give. Because there’s only two programs available:
- Receiving absolute Grace and Mercy – the total amnesty of Jesus. – or –
- Total responsibility & accountability for every sin, including the sin of rejecting Christ.
Jesus is inviting. Receive His amnesty program right now. Divorce yourself from the Kingdom of darkness and let God’s Spirit begin refreshing you today. He wants you to respond.
“If any man thirsts, let him come unto me, and drink.” (John 7:37)
Yes, Jesus is calling out today. He sent us to let you know. He wants you to respond.
Let’s get started: Turn to God and seek Him right now. Let him change your mind about who you are, and about who He is. Jesus will listen, if you call him now.
If you have decided to take that step and asked Jesus to guide you, we invite you to listen to our 12 part podcast series, “The Jesus Adventure, about following the call of Jesus is (available here) to explore our in depth study of the spirituality training system of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Amnesty for the Damned
God offers amnesty to every person who is a rebel against Him, regardless of how terrible or nice. God is willing to completely wipe out all your debts to Him. He promises to clean the record entirely of any accusation against you, and he will restore the relationship between you and Him – forever. This offer is available now, but for a limited time. He is calling, asking us to listen to his free offer of amnesty, through Jesus.
Jesus is calling out, inviting all to receive this and He’s eager that you would take up this incredible offer as soon as possible. In exchange, God will transform you from a creature of darkness to be a creature of light, from the inside out. To receive this incredible offer, you must turn to Jesus the Resurrected Messiah King, that God the Father sent to earth in ancient times, who was crucified and rose again from the dead.
You see, our entire race committed treason against God long ago. And even the best among us are still children of that treasonous rebel race. None of us can claim otherwise. We all rejected Him and chose to go our own way. Nothing has changed for us since the beginning. But God who is rich in mercy is changing it for any who receive his offer of amnesty.
This is the message that Jesus of Nazareth brought to the world:
He was authorized to bring great news from the throne of God, to every one of us who have rebelled.
Jesus specifically promised he was sent to proclaim total amnesty to all of us poor rebel traitors. He said in Luke chapter 4 that He brings:
This is the sweet spirit of amnesty and refreshing that Jesus came to offer us all today.
To understand the true value of this offer, we have to consider how serious of a situation this is.
Many people scoff at the idea of judgment from God; of Hell, or any kind of eternal suffering. Some people think evil is cool, that the devil is a joke, and that Hell is a party. But that’s all a lie.
Most of us don’t think that we are actually evil. But we have to see this from God’s perspective. He gave us perfection, but we spat at him. We blame him, but really all of the suffering and misery of this world is our fault. Some of us know we’re rebels, but we don’t know a way to fix it. God has made a way.
There are two things we have to understand before we can get this problem fixed:
God has said about the entire human race:
“…All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23)
These verses capture the severity of our problem in summary. And by the way, it’s a problem everybody has. Our entire race. None of us can hide from it. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God and every single one of them since then has also rebelled against him. We have collectively sold ourselves into spiritual slavery to the kingdom of darkness. At the start, mankind experienced spiritual death; being cut off from the beautiful light of God’s perfection. All people since then have been spiritually dead, truly cut off from the perfection of God’s divine life giving spirit. We have physical life and souls, but we are members of a fallen race, and are therefore subjects of the kingdom of fallen angels ever since.
This is not a small problem because God pronounced judgment and will destroy the fallen kingdom, in due time. He has already pronounced the sentence, a judicial condemnation. But he has held back from pronouncing the sentence upon us yet, because He is not willing to condemn anyone who will turn to Him.
God is rich in mercy. So rich in mercy that He has a plan to rescue fallen humans and restore us to the perfection He had always intended for us, from the start. You see, the second half of that verse in Romans 6:23 gives us the clue:
This is the problem with religion, by the way; It can’t solve the conundrum of our rebel hearts.
God’s a whole package offer comes to this, Jesus said:
In fact, Jesus said:
Now, if you’re like me, when I first heard about this amnesty, you may be asking: How do I get this amnesty? Where do I go? What will it cost? What’s the way to receive it? Jesus has already told us:
So, we want to rest assured that we can find the way, the way is available. But there’s really good news because the whole of what Jesus said there is:
There is a way, there is truth, there is life. It’s everlasting life; indestructible life. It’s a narrow way, through a single door. But the great news is that the Father in Heaven made a wide open way, an entirely open door through Jesus, who is that way, that truth and that life. He’s made it clear and simple. And Jesus has already said that He came to give us life, full, abundant, enduring life in our spirit.
But why? How is that possible? How can one man offer that? It’s a matter of his indestructible life and it’s a matter of Heaven’s legal judgment and due process. You see, God did not want to leave our race to the realm of spiritual death or condemnation of the final judgment. He made a way to legally absolve our sin, a way to legally offer us amnesty. And it’s sort of like Double Jeopardy. Anyone who has ever served a prison term in the USA knows that there is a rule called Double Jeopardy; which means that you can’t serve a prison term twice for the same crime. Once it’s served, it’s over.
And that rule even goes so far as to say that once you have served that sentence, if you were later found innocent of that crime somehow, that you could then commit that exact crime and not have to serve a single day in prison for it. There was a popular movie made about this topic back in 1999 called “double jeopardy”, about this fact of the law. But not many people realize that this is true of spiritual law also.
Once a spiritual crime is paid for, there is no further debt; the judgment is satisfied. Because of this, it was possible for Jesus to pay our debt and pass that Satisfaction of Judgment onward. You see, Jesus was completely innocent. He never committed any crime. The Roman governor put Jesus on trial and found that he was not guilty of any crime. The vassal King Herod examined him and said he did not find him guilty. The only thing the religious rulers of Judah found in their tribunal was that he claimed to be the very son of God, as the Book of Daniel said the Messiah would be. That would only be a sin, if he wasn’t the Messiah that Daniel speaks of. Yet, they demanded his crucifixion anyway.
Most importantly: He never sinned against God. So, his death on that bloody cross was a judgment, a judicial punishment, for a crime he did not commit. God told us in advance that He was satisfied with the punishment that Jesus endured as a payment for the sins of all who ever rebelled (Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12, and Daniel 9:26). Now because He did not commit the crime, he can offer that satisfaction of judgment to anyone who will receive it. In other words, we can receive His amnesty and are eligible to actually receive the perfect relationship with God that Jesus had, for free. Because Jesus was condemned and punished in our place.
You might ask: “how can one man pay the penalty for all?” And the truth is that no ordinary man could pay the spiritual penalty, not for even one other man. Not even a brother for a brother. Because all of us are mortals, and all of us have sinned. But neither of those things is true of Jesus. He is not mortal, He is the eternal God. He is also not a sinner, but is forever righteous and just. So, as an eternal being with no sin, He did pay the debt for all. Since the debt was paid, He wants to give it to all who will receive it. Not only did he pay that debt on that ugly Roman cross, but he was buried and rose again to eternal life on the 3rd day.
The cross proves to us that he was human; entirely able to be a redeemer of humans as a living human soul. The empty tomb proves to us He is God; an indestructible life that could not be kept in death. Now because he offers life to us, it’s not merely this life, but indestructible life as redeemed people – fully paid for by his sacrifice.
We are truly offered something that cannot be ignored. This is so important, that Jesus reiterates this message over and over, even to the end of the Bible. It says in Revelation 3:20-22:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear…”
Jesus is calling us to receive Him, to open our lives to Him. If we do so, then we begin the path of being overcomers; those who are no longer subjects of the kingdom of this present darkness. To us who turn to him and trust Him, Jesus makes the promise to honor us, to welcome us even to sit with Him at His throne. Not merely saved, but honored to a level above the angels.
So, how do we take hold of this amnesty?
Jesus said:
“whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it…”
First we need to realize that this is an exchange. We let go of the old life to receive a new life by faith. Being born again is about receiving the Life Giving Spirit from God. All we bring to the table, even the best of what we have, is spiritual poverty.
We don’t really bring anything but willingness. When a baby is born, it has nothing; All it can do is be flexible. Mom does all the work. Mom gives birth out of love. So it is with God. God does the work, entirely out of love. The baby receives the new birth life, because the old life was unsustainable; a baby that stays in the womb will die. It’s the same way with our old spiritual life: if we don’t come out of the old and into the new, we die. But coming into the new and breathing the life giving spirit of God, we live and breathe and experience everything anew.
God has a breath from Heaven for us. If we are flexible, and say yes to Jesus, God will breathe his Spirit into us, in the same way a mother breathes life into her new born as it arrives. God greatly desires us to be born of His Spirit, the same way a mother desires her baby to come forth and breathe life in this world. This is the invitation: a whole new life.
What must a person do to be saved? You have no offering but yourself. A new baby does not pay it’s mother for being born. The only gift the child brings is itself becoming alive.
The challenge for each rebel today is to say: “Jesus, I am willing. Father, I want to come alive in your spirit. Please give me the faith to trust Jesus, to believe what you have said.”
Then comes the growth process
That is what Jesus taught in his ministry, for how to live that new life:
Turn to Jesus, in total abandonment of the broken life, and accept all that He wants to give. Because there’s only two programs available:
Jesus is inviting. Receive His amnesty program right now. Divorce yourself from the Kingdom of darkness and let God’s Spirit begin refreshing you today. He wants you to respond.
“If any man thirsts, let him come unto me, and drink.” (John 7:37)
Yes, Jesus is calling out today. He sent us to let you know. He wants you to respond.
Let’s get started: Turn to God and seek Him right now. Let him change your mind about who you are, and about who He is. Jesus will listen, if you call him now.
If you have decided to take that step and asked Jesus to guide you, we invite you to listen to our 12 part podcast series, “The Jesus Adventure, about following the call of Jesus is (available here) to explore our in depth study of the spirituality training system of Jesus of Nazareth.
[wps_listen_btn]
Published in Commentary, Great News, Prepared Warriors, Teaching and The Jesus Adventure