Jr. Tree of Life
11/29/2020

Divine and Human Viewpoint - Part 4

Eternity Past, Age of Gentiles, Age of Israel, Hypostatic Union, Church Age, Tribulation, Millennium, Eternal future

Before you begin this Bible study, If you have never believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior, John 3:16 tells us: “ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life.’ Simply have faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and you will have eternal life and be saved. If you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior; then 1 John 1:9 tells us; “If you confess your sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Simply privately tell God the Father your sins to be filled with God the Holy Spirit and He will teach you Bible truth. (Rebound)

Promise Memory Verse
“For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” Romans 3:23

Luke 18:9-14

During the Hypostatic Union when Jesus lived, he loved to teach by using stories called Parables to make things easier for everyone to understand. Let’s take a peek back in time and see what Jesus taught.

In One Parable, Our Savior spoke about two different people who went to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee and one of them was a tax collector. Let’s see if you can pick out the person who had divine viewpoint and who had human viewpoint.

The Pharisee was one of the Jewish temple leaders. He should have known the right way to pray, but he messed up big time. Instead of thanking God for His love and grace towards him, he used his prayer to brag about himself! He was arrogant.
This guy was totally stuck up and thought he was one of the most awesome people on earth; even worse, he thought everyone else was a beneath him or worst they were total losers.

Next, we look at the Jewish tax collector who had the job of gathering money from the Jewish people so they could pay their taxes to Rome. Many people hated their guts because they lied and cheated and stole money from them.

The tax collector knew he wasn’t anyone special and that he had done a lot of bad things. He did not even think he was good enough to look up to Heaven as he prayed. He was beating his chest, crying out that he was a sinner and asking for God’s mercy toward him. This man knew that he could only go to Heaven by accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior. He had humility and divine viewpoint.

The Pharisee had human viewpoint. On the outside, he looked like he was an extra special person because he was one of the church leaders. He thought he could get to heaven because he was better than everyone else which wasn’t true.

Our memory verse at the top of this page tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Both the tax collector and the Pharisee were sinners. Neither one of them deserved God’s grace and love or God’s gift of salvation.

God doesn’t create junk. He gives every person the same chance to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. A lot of people think that if they are good people that they will automatically go to heaven when they die. Some people hope they will go to heaven when they die.

The only way to be 100% positive that you will go to heaven and have eternal life when you die is to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross
for all of the bad things you think, do or say. God gave us His promises of this in the verses below.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Jesus Christ has two sides, His God side and His human side. He is both God and man at the same time. Can you believe that He never thought bad thoughts about us even when people spit on Him, or made fun of Him. Instead of hating us and being angry with us, He loved us so much that He was willing to die a painful death on a cross so He could save all of us. Jesus always had divine viewpoint.

In the fall, some trees in cold areas have green leaves that turn red, orange, yellow and brown. After that happens; the wind blows the leaves away and those trees look dead. What do you think should be done with them? Do you think you should get a chain saw and cut them all down; of course not! We all know that in the spring when it gets warmer the trees will bud and new leaves will green up and fill the branches because these trees have life.

We all need to be careful about the way we think about things. The tree story shows us if we use human viewpoint and are out of fellowship with God, then we have totally wrong thinking. If we are in fellowship, then we will have divine viewpoint. The way we think matters to God!