I felt compelled to write this particular blog because I have been struggling with addressing some things from my past that, well, quite frankly, I’m not dealing with them as if Jesus lives in me or in fact as if I know Him very well at all. But this is precisely why I am feeling a need (if for no other reason than for my own growth) to do this: to remind myself (and anyone else who reads these words) just Who Jesus really is.
For if truth be told, based simply upon my actions (but especially those of the Church and other Christians), if most of us were honest, we’d have to admit we really have no ‘earthly’ idea sometimes just Who Jesus was and is. And I’m not talking about the age old argument of whether or not He is the Son of God or pure God or fully human or sinless. I am talking about the qualities of Jesus Himself; how He would act if He were sitting physically next to me right now.
Without making this about a theological argument, I want to reflect upon a deeper way to look at Jesus, and this solely for going deeper into the Man from Nazareth.
Most of us have been to a wedding here in the States and more than likely have heard the “great wedding” Scripture – I Corinthians 13 – about what Love is…or as it has been called by theologians the chapter on Love – the Superior Way. I’m going to make a few spiritual connections, so bear with me as I make my way to a place where I come to know Jesus again in divine freshness. I pray you will as well.
The Scriptures say God is love (see I John 4:7 but read the entire Epistles of John the Beloved to get a clearer picture) and Jesus said that He was the Way (and also the Truth and the Life but for this I am focusing on the Love aspect. See the Gospel of John 14:6). So, based on these Scriptures, I’m going to show an amazing picture of Jesus Who is truly Love, the Superior Way.
Come with me and take a look at this Jesus of Nazareth, this One Who has seized my heart and my entire being; the One Who daily and with utter gentleness, molds and and forms me like clay…clay in the hands of the Master Potter.
“Jesus, I’d like you to meet Niles. Niles, I’d like you to meet Jesus.”
And here is a small portrait of the Nazarene Whom I’ve met and keep meeting again and again every day. It is a profoundly simple portrait of Jesus whereby I have merely taken the Love Chapter from I Corinthians 13 and substituted the word “love” with the word “Jesus.”
Before you read it do me, and yourself, one favor: say a prayer before you read it, asking for this Man to be the Jesus you meet…
“If I speak the languages of men and of angels, but do not have Jesus, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have Jesus, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be [martyred], but do not have Jesus, I gain nothing.
“Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy; Jesus is not boastful; Jesus is not conceited; Jesus does not act improperly; Jesus is not selfish; Jesus is not provoked; Jesus does not keep a record of wrongs; Jesus finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Jesus never ends.
Now these three remain: faith, hope, and Jesus. But the greatest of these is Jesus.”
soulpatch.net 