Sometimes both life and faith can be challenging. In those moments, it is important to know that Jesus is not only the originator but the completer of our faith. The Bible promises us Jesus will get you through!

<p>Sometimes both life and faith can be challenging. In those moments, it is important to know that Jesus is not only the originator but the completer of our faith. The Bible promises us Jesus will get you through!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Author and Finisher

I read a list recently, ranking the best authors of all time.

I mean, how do you really compare 1 author against another author?

Across genres, across centuries, even across millennia.

But people try to do so, and I suppose for discussion purposes it's an interesting thing to toss backwards and forwards.

Now the list on Ranker.com rated as the best writer of all time drumroll please Who do you think the number 1 ranked writer, rated author, at least on this listing, who would it be?

Well if you said William Shakespeare, you'd be absolutely right.

The Bard, William Shakespeare, rated as the greatest writer of all time, the best writer.

Now you've got to be a wordy of some kind to think about this name.

This 1 might not, if you know books, you might say Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist, came in number 2.

So if Dostoevsky was second and yet another Russian was third, who would that Russian be?

It could only be Leo Tolstoy, who wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature 5 years in a row, That's at least from 1902 to 1906.

And he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 3 times.

Never, ever won the prestigious prize even once.

Number 4, Homer, the ancient Greek who's thought to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey, then who came in at 5th, a little more modern, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, 1984, 8th.

Americans finally show up on the list at 9th and 10th, Edgar Allan Poe and then Ernest Hemingway.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote the Canterbury Tales, 35th.

Even though Paradise Lost is considered to be 1 of the greatest works in the English language, John Milton was only ranked number 41, behind Ray Bradbury.

Seuss, number 62, 1 spot ahead of Harper Lee.

Evidently, the cat in the hat is more consequential than to kill a mockingbird.

Now when you talk about the number of books written, who's the greatest writer by number, by volume, or even just who wrote the most.

It's said that the science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote more than 400 books.

It's hard to imagine how anybody could write 400 and Asimov was dealing with heavy stuff or technical stuff, okay creative imaginative weird stuff often I Just finished a book well a devotional book So it's a book, but it's not a book book.

I mean lots and lots of words But you wouldn't call it quite the same work as war and peace or Moby Dick Impossible to imagine a person could write 400 books of substance, but who knows?

Agatha Christie wrote almost 70 novels and 19 plays.

In fact, she sold 2 million books in the English language alone in 2020, despite having been dead for 45 years.

There are some authors who are said to have written hundreds and hundreds of books, but it's pretty clear they had writers write for them and they merely attached their name to the book, so that doesn't qualify.

The word author means a person who invents or causes something.

It's related to the word authentic, meaning genuine or maybe original.

Produces something authentic, something genuine, something original.

In the book of Hebrews, Jesus is described as an author.

Now, you could say that he inspired the bible as he is a part of the godhead but jesus certainly did not write the bible the greek word is archegos which means something like 1 who leads the way.

It means leader, originator, founder, pioneer.

The word archegos is used 4 times in the New Testament.

In Acts 3.15, Jesus is the Prince of Life, the Archegos of Life.

Acts 5.31, "...Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince, Archegos, and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." Hebrews 2 verse 10, For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain, the archegos of their salvation, perfect through sufferings.

And then Hebrews 12 and verse 2, where Jesus is the author of our faith.

Let's pause And take a moment to look at that.

Here's what the Bible says, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares or besets us, and let us run with patience or with endurance the race that is set before us.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 scholar uses the illustration of a ship foundering on a rock.

Someone jumps overboard with a rope, he says, and swims ashore, securing the line somewhere on the shore so that the others are able to grab onto the rope and come to safety.

It is said that in secular Greek, in the pantheon of the gods, Zeus was called the Archagos of the gods, meaning he was the head or the chief of all the gods.

Incidentally, head or chief is Archegos' simplest literal meaning.

Jesus, the Archegos, and the finisher of our faith.

So what does this suggest about Jesus and salvation?

Well, it suggests something that we really need to know.

Here's what I'm coming to believe more and more.

The questions of greatest importance to God's people today have less to do with the chiastic structure of the book of Revelation, less to do with the daily in Daniel 8, less to do with the identity of the 7 kings or the 8 kings in Revelation chapter 17 and more to do with a person's relationship with Jesus.

Now you didn't hear me say that those other things are not important.

But what's most important is how we navigate our relationship with Jesus.

How we interpret our relationship with Jesus.

How we perceive our relationship with Jesus.

How we understand our relationship with Jesus every so often somebody will come to me and say pastor have a question for you sure what's the question once in a great while it's something easy something light something easy but more often than not the people who approach me at conventions and gatherings and meetings and pull me to 1 side I've got a question for you they're asking me meaningful questions deep questions but again not about the daily not about Daniel 7 not about Revelation 17 They're asking me about their standing with Jesus.

They're asking me how they can live based on what they've done in the past and the guilt that they carry with them today.

They're asking me how they can measure up when in the Bible, God clearly makes some big claims on our lives.

They're asking me how they can live before God with a clear conscience because of some of those things that have happened in the past.

People who drift away from church don't usually do so because they saw some deep theological point differently than a certain seminary professor might have.

No, What's troubling people today is their relationship with Jesus.

Again, I'm not saying the other things aren't important.

But I'm talking about what's most important.

In Earth's last days, when God's people are wrestling with sin and salvation.

What will come over them, I have read, is a deep sense of their sin and sinfulness, and they're going to want to know that they're forgiven.

I read this in a book called The Great Controversy.

As they review the past, their hopes sink.

For in their whole lives, they can see little good.

They are fully conscious of their weakness and unworthiness.

Satan endeavors to terrify them with the thought that their cases are hopeless, that the stain of their defilement will never be washed away.

He hopes so to destroy their faith that they will yield to his temptations and turn from their allegiance to God.

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Author and Finisher

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