Who Do You Know?
Jesus stands at the crux of all time and all history. And how we know him determines everything in time and in eternity. Do we know Jesus through our institutions or do we know Jesus directly? And if directly, do we know the Jesus of our framework, our worldview, our narrative? Or do we know the Jesus that Peter, James, and John did? How about knowing the philosophy of Jesus, Rabbi Jesus, the teacher, or do we know the resurrected Jesus? Do we know Jesus as savior and Lord?
It’s Not A Head Game
We know what we have experienced. It’s not a head game.
You’ve probably known pastors, priests, and ministers who know all about Jesus, but being a professional doesn’t mean you actually know him.
We tend to plug and shape Jesus into our own narrative, even controlling him as some mystic Christ, the spirit of universal consciousness. We may dismiss him as irrelevant, or pathetic. Books and opinions are endless, and the spin goes on and on.
C.S Lewis Trilemma
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Real Relationships Grow
Does our relationship grow or is it just accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior?
The Scriptures record how the disciples view of Jesus grew, as they walked with him day by day. And if we’re honest, our experience of Jesus grows as we walk with him, live in him, and he in us.
There is no end game, no arrival, no aha, now I know him. He will never fit into our little boxes of comprehension or theology.
Our knowing Jesus is an intimate journey. It can be an event, a process of coming to know him, and an ultimate revelation face to face.
The Testimony of Scripture
The Choice Is Always Ours
Religion may try to bottle up and dispense God, but the Scriptures clearly point us to Jesus, teaching that you can know him personally, intimately and eternally. Just ask Jesus in.
That is the testimony of Scripture and mine too.
