Collosians 1:15
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
When most people who have any knowledge about Christianity talk about who Jesus is, their opinion is normally something along the lines of " Jesus is the son of God". This statement is very true, although, what most people do when they say this is they do not put one and one together and say that Jesus IS God in the flesh.
From what I have experienced, in my very short amount of time of telling people about Jesus is that this is something that needs to be said.
Scripture makes it clear that Jesus is not just a man who is, kinda like God or that He is a guy who learned alot from God and was made some sort of super ultra wise man but rather that he actually is God.
'He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God.'(verse 15). This statement alone is something that has so much to it in terms of how we need to change our thinking.
In our culture the same as theirs,( the audience to which this was originally written) there is alot or spirituality and following spirits that cannot be seen. In many cases this leads to a variety of forms of worship, whether it is called that or not. We all know people who are obsessed with their zodiak signs or horoscopes. People who are superstitious and believe in carma and what I will call " what goes around comes around-ism".
This is in some form the worship of a so called god that is invisible. Not even to mention other religious groups.
As Christians we no longer are left to imagine what are God would say, literally. We have testimony of men who have walked and talked with him, and have seen him in dreams after he was killed, resurrected and ascended. We don't need to guess how he would say things or how he would relate to people because we read how he loved people and took care of people and how he also yelled at people who needed to get yelled at. I think most of all saying that Jesus is the image of the invisible shows how He can talk the talk and walk the walk. He came to show us the ropes and then before he left he gave us the ability to learn from him, by being killed by us and then giving us the Holy Spirit.
To say that Jesus is God means that there is no longer any need to guess, and even better then that it means that there is no need to follow a god of inconsistency and chance when we have a God who came and lived out what He asked us to do and did it better than anyone.
He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Basics
Matthew 26:6-12
“Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a women came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it they were indignant, saying “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them “ Why do you trouble the women? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial.”
In this passage we get the point that Jesus’ disciples were thinking in a way that they were instructed to think. They were thinking selflessly, about the poor. Trying to be good Stuarts of what has been presented. This expensive oil could have fed a lot of people and done a lot of good for the progression of the gospel and the mission of Christ. But Jesus’ response was not to agree with this at this moment and sell this ointment and feed the poor, but rather his response was one that reflects worship and gratitude. “ For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
Our relationship with Jesus has to be the number one priority in our lives as Christians. If we lose sight of this we lost sight of the point. Our faith is not earned it’s given. I can never feed enough poor, hungry people to make Jesus happy with me. Jesus is happy with me when I allow him to die for me and simply prepare him for his burial. This women’s action show acceptance, acceptance to the point that she will sit their and let Jesus die and do all the work for her. Her action is recognition of her inadequacy to play a role in earning the approval of Jesus. So how does she do this? She prepared him for his burial. An act of submission.
This is a lesson that I know for a fact that I need to learn. How often do we as Christians get so carried away with missions and evangelism that we forget to just sit with Jesus? This is very simple lesson on paper and not impressive. But I think that is the point in a lot of ways, Jesus was not an impressive person, infact he was so unimpressive that they did not believe that he was in fact who he said he was, to such a degree that they killed him. The gospel is not intended to be impressive. It’s a humble writing about a man who came to die for us and do everything.
I love to read theology and learn big words and concepts to better explain the deep and never ending truths of the Bible and how these are recognized in the world that we live in. But at the end of the day if I forget to sit with Jesus then what was the point? He is the center of all the theology but so often we mask him behind a concept, or an abstract philosophical idea.
Missions are not wrong by any means, and in fact they are entirely necessary but we need to get our heads in the right place first. When we get side tracked and stumble back into where we came from, we need to have the humility to look at the situation and recognize that we have to get back to basics because it clearly is not that basic.
“Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a women came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it they were indignant, saying “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them “ Why do you trouble the women? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial.”
In this passage we get the point that Jesus’ disciples were thinking in a way that they were instructed to think. They were thinking selflessly, about the poor. Trying to be good Stuarts of what has been presented. This expensive oil could have fed a lot of people and done a lot of good for the progression of the gospel and the mission of Christ. But Jesus’ response was not to agree with this at this moment and sell this ointment and feed the poor, but rather his response was one that reflects worship and gratitude. “ For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
Our relationship with Jesus has to be the number one priority in our lives as Christians. If we lose sight of this we lost sight of the point. Our faith is not earned it’s given. I can never feed enough poor, hungry people to make Jesus happy with me. Jesus is happy with me when I allow him to die for me and simply prepare him for his burial. This women’s action show acceptance, acceptance to the point that she will sit their and let Jesus die and do all the work for her. Her action is recognition of her inadequacy to play a role in earning the approval of Jesus. So how does she do this? She prepared him for his burial. An act of submission.
This is a lesson that I know for a fact that I need to learn. How often do we as Christians get so carried away with missions and evangelism that we forget to just sit with Jesus? This is very simple lesson on paper and not impressive. But I think that is the point in a lot of ways, Jesus was not an impressive person, infact he was so unimpressive that they did not believe that he was in fact who he said he was, to such a degree that they killed him. The gospel is not intended to be impressive. It’s a humble writing about a man who came to die for us and do everything.
I love to read theology and learn big words and concepts to better explain the deep and never ending truths of the Bible and how these are recognized in the world that we live in. But at the end of the day if I forget to sit with Jesus then what was the point? He is the center of all the theology but so often we mask him behind a concept, or an abstract philosophical idea.
Missions are not wrong by any means, and in fact they are entirely necessary but we need to get our heads in the right place first. When we get side tracked and stumble back into where we came from, we need to have the humility to look at the situation and recognize that we have to get back to basics because it clearly is not that basic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)