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About Jesus Steve Sweetman I
Don’t Know God That Well I
don’t claim to know God. His
ways of thinking and doing
things are foreign to me. My
earthy existence seems to be in direct contradiction to the little I
know about Him. What I do
know about God might be compared to a molecule of water which is dropped
into the I
do know that God is a spirit (John 4:24).
Can I understand the spiritual world He lives in?
Well, maybe a bit, but that’s only because the Holy Spirit
helps me. On my own, and
even with the aid of the Holy Spirit, my understanding of spiritual
things is severely limited. There’s
a major disconnect between earthly man and a spiritual God.
I’m
not the only one with such a minuscule knowledge of God.
I hate to suggest this to you, but you’re in the same boat as
me. I know most of us
Christians don’t want to admit it, but we just don’t know and
understand God as much as we claim we do.
There
is one person that I do have some kind of understanding of and
association with, and He’s our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’ll never forget what my grade eleven physics teacher Glenn
Shaver told us decades ago. He
said that if we as human beings wanted to communicate with an ant, the
best way to do that would be for us to become an ant.
That’s what God did for us.
No, God didn’t become an ant.
He became a human being. He
was born into humanity as Jesus of Nazareth who God appointed as both
Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). God
becoming a man would bridge the disconnect between man and God.
Jesus is definitely someone I can begin to relate to.
Jesus
told us that if we see Him, we see God the Father, because He is the
“exact representation of who God is”. (John 14:9, Hebrews 1:3)
I like that. I
can’t know God all that well, but I can know Jesus, and what I know of
Jesus is sufficient for me to know about God.
For
this reason, Christians should speak more about Jesus than we do.
I won’t bother you with my personal statistics I’ve gathered
over the years, but Christians speak more about God than Jesus, even
though God has given Jesus authority over all things until the time
comes when Jesus hands all things back to His Father (1 Corinthians
15:24). Believe me, I
may not always be right, but I’m right on this one.
Just listen. Listen
and hear how many times Jesus is mentioned in comparison to God in
Christian circles, and I’m not just talking about so-called liberal
Christian circles. If God
Himself has placed Jesus on the throne of all things, we should speak of
Him more than we do. Not
that it’s wrong talking about God, but we’re Christians – that’s
“Christ” with the suffix
“ian”. We’re not “Godians”,
although I guess we could be.
You
and I can’t really know God to any large degree, at least not while
we’re so confined to this present earthiness.
Maybe someday we’ll know Him better, but until then we can know
Jesus, especially through His Spirit.
It is Jesus who we really represent to the world.
As Jesus represented His Father to the world, so we represent
Jesus to the world (John 20:21). Therefore,
in these last days, let’s speak about Jesus so others will be directed
to a Jesus that is knowable. Making
sure the world knows we represent the Lord Jesus Christ is critical.
It is Jesus that distinguishes us from the multitude of other
religions. Without this distinction we are no different than these other
religions, and we'll soon join the ranks of the new world order's
generic ecumenicalism that is sweeping the world.
We need to tell the world who we serve and represent.
Yes we serve God, but to be specific and clear, we serve the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He’s not the same God that other religions claim to serve.
I know that’s religiously and socially incorrect these days.
I also know we’ll be criticized for majoring on Jesus instead
of a generic multicultural god, but this is what we are called to.
When
I speak this way, I don’t want to under-estimate the power of the Holy
Spirit and the importance of our heavenly Father.
The Holy Spirit certainly opens our eyes to the spiritual realm
for us, yet even with His influence in our lives, God our Father is
beyond being totally understood. Jesus
on the other hand can be understood because He became like you and I.
That’s one reason why He appeared on earth in the first place.
Jesus should then be central to our message, our conversation,
and our lives. Let’s be
real “Jesus People” and include Him and His name in our
conversation. Let's make it
clear to the world who we represent.
Let's stand firm when our convictions concerning our Lord Jesus
Christ are challenged, and they will be challenged.
You can count on that.
There is no other name under heaven whereby men and women
can find salvation (Acts 4:12). That's
one conviction that is now being challenged today.
So I think Acts 4:12 makes it clear how important Jesus is and
His name is, wouldn't you agree? |