Category Archives: Jesus

Believing is Seeing

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Online dating is risky.  We imagine the person with whom we have connected, but rarely get it right.  When we actually meet, it can be quite a shock.  Believing in God is similar.  The God of our imagination may be very different from the character and personality of the real God.  This can be disillusioning, to say the least.  I know a man who genuinely believed that God would never allow anything bad to happen to him.  When tough times clobbered him, it was a real crisis for his faith.  He told me he no longer believed in God.  I suggested he consider if perhaps the God he no longer believed in was not  the real God.  This is a common problem.  You frequently hear people say, “My God wouldn’t let that happen…”  Understandable, since no one has ever seen God.  Our relationship with Him is a bit like online dating.

Except for this:  God sent His Son.  A “son,” in first century Jewish thinking, was someone who embodied the character and personality of another person.  Jesus called a couple of his disciples “Sons of Thunder,” because their personalities resembled rolling thunder.  He spoke of how His followers might become “Sons of light,” might take on character traits of His “light.”   To say Jesus was the “Son” of God was to say He was the embodiment of God’s character and personality.

As the author of Hebrews stated it,

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…”  –  (Hebrews 1:3a)

Jesus affirmed this.  He said, 

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”    –  (John 14:10b)

Therefore, our belief in God will align with Who God really is, what He is really like, as we believe in Jesus.  To put it another way, if we say we believe in God, but do not accept Jesus, then the God of our belief does not really match the character and personality of the True God.  That is what Jesus meant by these words:

“Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.”  –  (John 12:44b-45)

If you believe in the real God, not merely an imaginary god, you believe in the One Who so loved the world so deeply that He sent Jesus, His Son.  And, in your belief in Him, have attained eternal life. (Paraphrase of John 3:16)

Father Knows Best

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Does this make sense to you?

Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.   So his (Jesus’) brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”  For not even his brothers believed in him.  –  (John 7:2-5)
You might think  Jesus’ brothers encouraged Him to go to the big Feast  because they believed in Him, not because they did not.  If they didn’t believe in Him, why bother?  But what John means by “believe” – what Jesus means as well – is fully recognizing Who He really is, and then acting in ways consistent with that understanding.  The point here is that if the brothers really understood that Jesus was God Almighty, they would not have presumed to tell Him what to do.  

And yet, we make that same mistake, even as “believers,” when we presume to tell God how we think He should handle the various prayer requests we bring to Him.  To be sure, we have been encouraged to bring the requests and to honestly express our desires to God.  But there is an attitude sometimes missing that reflects humility before God’s perfect understanding and power to do the best thing possible.  His best sometimes does not conform to what we wish for. 

People who say, “If God was really good and  powerful, He would put an end to wickedness and suffering in the world,” are also on the same shaky footing.  They presume to know, better than God, how to deal with the evil in the world.   As though God should chase back and forth, stopping a beheading here, a racial insult there, and unjust hunger on the other side of the planet.  It’s hard to imagine any of these people coming up with a more elegant solution to evil than the one God ordained on the Cross, even though, in His wisdom, the full realization of His plan was “time release.”  

If you remember “The Godfather,” played by Marlon Brando, you will recall that nobody but nobody told the Godfather what to do.  They would’nt have dared because they were well aware of his position and power.  The same humility and respect is due God the Father.

Thirsty?

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The thirstiest place I ever visited was Israel. Talk about hot and dry….  Chug a whole bottle of water and feel dehydrated a few minutes later.  Especially out in rural areas, like where Jesus said some pretty intriguing things about thirst to a woman who had come to a well to fill her water jugs. He had asked her for a drink and she balked, because Jews didn’t ordinarily have anything to do with her kind, much less drink from the same cup.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

When she missed the point,

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”. (excerpts from John 4:8-14)

Obviously, Jesus was talking about a deeper kind of thirst, spiritual thirst. What makes you spiritually thirsty? For me, it was when life seemed pointless and aimless. Even working for myself in a job that seemed somewhat glamorous, I was frustrated by doing the same things over and over, day after day, without accomplishing much of anything except a paycheck. Other times felt thirsty to me when I came face to face with my own moral failings. Death of friends and family made me thirsty.

Notice that Jesus referred to His “water” as a “gift of God.”  You cannot earn it or pay for it; it is a gift, one that God Himself gives.  It is important to note that Jesus was saying this to a woman who was a social outcast among a people considered too defiled for Jews to associate with.  And yet she is (and also by implication, you are) offered the gift.  The gift is “living water,” which means it continuously flows, clear and pure.  It comes from an inexhaustible supply.  This “water” quenches spiritual thirst forever, and gives “eternal life!”   

If you have ever experienced spiritual thirst, if that kind of water sounds good to you, notice carefully how Jesus told the woman she could receive it.  He said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”   It’s a matter of knowing you are thirsty, understanding that God has what you need, knowing Who Jesus is, asking Him and accepting it as a gift.  No expert in theology, nevertheless this woman knew real thirst and knew how wonderful an offer she had been given.  She accepted it right then and there.  

How about you;  are you thirsty?

Above My Paygrade

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A friend who writes sophisticated software was losing sleep over a tough problem.  I made the mistake of asking him to explain, in simple terms, what the issue was.  For the next 20 minutes he did his best, but I was dumbfounded.  I couldn’t understand anything he said!  And he was really trying to dumb it down for me.

Jesus had the same problem trying to explain spiritual reality to a guy who couldn’t fathom what He was saying.  Of course, the man was merely a religious expert, one of the temple leaders at the time.  Jesus told him:

I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?  (John 3:12 (NIV84))

Translation?  “Hey, this thing I’m telling you is basic stuff.  If you can’t understand this, there’s no way for me to explain about heaven.”  Makes me pretty curious about the “Heavenly things” since what Jesus said was the basic level stuff was about being “born again.”  Literally, “born from above.”  He was talking about having the Spirit of God coming alive in your soul, so that you could come to life – being born, so to speak – in a whole new way.  Into eternal life.  Here’s some of the rest:

Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’. (John 3:3–7 (NIV84))

I cannot fully grasp this beginner level truth. Analogies help but it remains a swirling mystery. Even after having experienced the effects of this spiritual new birth I still struggle to fully comprehend it. Imagine how amazing the “heavenly things” must be… Religion has a way of reducing such mystery down to where even the experts can master it. But Jesus knows we ain’t seen nothing yet!

Family Matters

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Professional door to door salesmen have a certain air about them when the front door opens.  Kind of a mixture of formality with friendliness, practiced patter in smooth tones, dosed with expectation and anxiety.  If they want success at this house, they need to perform.  On the other hand, the kids in that household come to the front door, yank it open and go blasting through, shoelaces untied, jacket half off, enroute to the kitchen for a snack.  Big difference.  When you are a part of the family, you don’t need to perform to be accepted or even loved.  You just belong, simply because of who you are.

This is especially true for those in God’s family.  Who are they?  Consider these verses:

12 Yet to all who received him, [Jesus] to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  –  (John 1:12–13  –  NIV84)

26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  (Galatians 3:26–29  –  NIV84)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1a  –  NIV84)

By trusting Jesus, we are welcomed into God’s family, not by adoption, as nice as that would be, but through birth, the birth of God’s Spirit in our souls.  That’s better.  As His children there is no pecking order; race, former religion, social status – none of that matters.  We are treated alike, and have full rights as heirs.  God arranges for this through a generous act of lavish love.  Welcome home!

The New Way of Freedom

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I used to steer clear of Jesus because I didn’t want to be confined by all those uptight rules.  Ironic, when in truth, following Jesus allows one to cast off the rules (more fully explained in the previous post, “The New Way“).  It’s not that the rules were bad, but that you don’t need them if you are listening to the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit.  Moreover, rules don’t work because they arouse our human urge to break them. There is something about a sign that says, “Don’t Touch” that makes us want to do it. Rules try to stop us from heading in a negative direction, toward sin and death.  The Spirit leads us in a positive direction, into the joy of living gracefully.  The Spirit leads us toward rich, satisfying life.

 

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

Tyndale House Publishers. (2013). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Ro 8:1–4). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

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Once upon a time there was a warehouse filled with cell phones that thought they were calculators.  Their manufacturer had designed them to be phones, but their SIM cards had been damaged.  They were dead but did not realize it.  They had battery power and several working apps so they thought they were “alive.”  One day the manufacturer sent someone to bring them to life.  He came with copies of his own perfect SIM card, offering to replace their damaged cards with his own. Most of the phones thought he was crazy and rejected the offer. But those who allowed him to make the exchange were astonished to discover all the new ways they could operate once they could receive a cell signal.  It was as though they came to life for the first time.

Once upon a time there was a planet filled with dead people who thought they were alive. Because their bodies worked and they could think, they assumed they were experiencing all that life had to offer.  One day, their Creator sent Someone to fix them and bring them to full and abundant life.  Here is what they wrote about Him:

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.  (John 1:4-5)

Jesus offered to connect them for the first time with the “Life” and “Light” of God’s Holy Spirit, bringing them to full and abundant life in a whole new way.  He would exchange what was damaged in them with His perfection, personally accepting the cost of their damage and allowing them to operate as their Manufacturer intended.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  (John 1:9–13)

 

Your Maker

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Have you seen the T-shirt that says, “There is a God” on the front?  On the back it reads, “You’re not Him!”  Good reminder.  But the Apostle John would give Jesus a T-shirt that read, “There is a God and I Am Him.”  Imagine how awkward it was for John to tell people he knew a guy who actually was Almighty God.  If you were accosted in the airport by someone telling you that, you’d immediately take your leave. Running.

But John was dead serious.  Jesus, he said, is God!”  The God.  Think of the implications.  One, in John’s words, is this:

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  (John 1:3 (NASB95))

Where I live, 14,000 foot mountains dominate the western horizon.  They pulsate with dawn’s first luminescence, sparkle with ice and snow throughout the day and, at dusk, are silhouetted by astonishingly beautiful sunsets.  If John was right, Jesus designed all that beauty.  Look down at your hand: Consider the intricate workings of each of your fingers.  Jesus did that.  Think about your what makes you unique, your likes and dislikes, the sound of your voice and your special skills.  Ponder the fact that you can hear and see.  “Nothing came into being apart from Him.”  That means He made you.  Jesus.

I know adoptees who yearn to one day meet their natural parents.  What if you could actually meet the One Who designed you and created you; would that interest you?

You can, you know…

Hearing is not Believing

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It puzzles me when people play adventure video games by looking up the answers and cheats online, instead of figuring them out.  If someone tells them the answer, they can’t enjoy the experience of discovering it.

Bear that concept in mind and consider this: At His trial, Jesus’ accusers said,

“If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, (Luke 22:67)

When Jesus said “If I tell you you will not believe,” perhaps He was not accusing them but helping them. Coming to faith in Jesus is not simply hearing about Him from someone telling us. Believing is something we do. Believing is more than merely knowing the right answers. It cannot be done to us or for us; it is a personal adjustment. And without that personal change, the life-giving relationship with Jesus is impossible. Perhaps ,Jesus could have told them the answer but did not, in order to give them the opportunity to come to a personal belief in that answer.

He said to Peter, “You are blessed because you didn’t hear this from someone else but received it from the Holy Spirit.” The process of leading people to faith must leave room for them to discover the truth in a personal way and believe without being spoon-fed all the answers.

In Your Midst

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Whose invasion would be more dangerous: George Patton or The Body Snatchers?  Full on military assault or silent and subtle takeover, one person at a time?  If you said, George Patton, maybe you haven’t seen The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The aliens, at first glance, looked just like everybody else. Their invasion was subtle and gradual, not a frontal blitzkrieg.  It was multiplied as each human was mutated and then in turn infected others. Scary business.  Even Donald Sutherland couldn’t hold them back.

I pose the question because Jesus said He would establish His Kingdom on earth, that the Kingdom was at hand, but it’s been 2000 years and nothing much seemed to happen.  Maybe you wonder, “If Jesus came to bring in the Kingdom of God, where is it?   This world is run amuck with murderous morons and merchants of greed.  For many, the world is awash in despair.  If this is His Kingdom, I’m not sure it is very attractive or even safe.”

Jesus faced the same skepticism right from the beginning.  Frustrated under the cruel oppression of the Romans, most of the people expected a George Patton type of Savior.  They wanted Jesus to be a powerful, conquering hero.  When asked how long they would have to wait, Jesus replied:… “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”  (Luke 17:20b-21)

At first glance, you may not realize how widespread and influential the Kingdom has become.  But look closer.  When people were transformed by the body snatchers, they looked the same at first glance, but had become emotionally dead.  The Kingdom of Jesus spreads like that but with the opposite effect.  People who trust Jesus are transformed and suddenly find new life, discovering how dead they had previously been.  Instead of being enslaved by snatchers they are set free in Christ to live an abundant and eternal life.  There’s no cannons, tanks, flags and trumpets, but one by one, as each person comes to and “Aha!” realization of the identity of Jesus, His kingdom expands.

Unfortunately, Christians have, throughout history, attempted to convert people by force (think, the Crusades) and by manipulative human methods.  These have done more harm than good.  But they have not stopped the steady, silent and subtle advance of the real Kingdom.  As Jesus said,

…”The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”  (Matthew 13:33b)