REFLECTIONS

Jesus

How do you see Jesus in your mind? Since no one has ever seen God, the image of a man is most easily understood. Born of woman like you and me. His early adolescent behavior like the time he sent his parents into a frenzy by slipping away to be in his Father’s house. Or when Jesus wept for his grieving friends; sweated blood in fear of the suffering facing him, and his prayer for his Father to …take this cup from me. He cried in agony, “I thirst.”  He died.

Yet some things He did that were not like ordinary men. He healed the sick and lame, raised Lazarus from the dead, turned water into wine, and fed 5000 men with only five loaves of bread and two small fish and still had plenty to spare. He walked on water. He calmed a storm.

And there were his transforming words. To a Pharisee, “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. (John 3:5-6) To the woman at the well, “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.” (John 4:14) And to his disciples “I am the bread of life, light of the world, the gate, good shepherd, and the resurrection and the life.” But his greatest disclosure was the relationship He revealed. “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) Remember the creation?

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. (Gen 1:26 Emphasis added.) Apostle John explained it: He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:2-4) And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son…” (Matthew 3:17)

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” (John 5:19-20) And, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

God came into the world through his Son. He is Jesus the Christ, Who, being in very nature God, / did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, / but made himself nothing, / taking the very nature of a servant, / being made in human likeness. / And being found in appearance as a man, / he humbled himself / and became obedient to death — / even death on a cross! / Therefore God exalted him to the highest place / and gave him the name that is above every name, /  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, / in heaven and on earth and under the earth, / and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, / to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

More than a man, still Jesus made every day in this world a Father’s Day.

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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