Who is Jesus? (part 5)

Jesus became like the average Joe to all of us. (Isaiah 53) God sent Him down with the purpose of demonstrating to us was sin does to the average Joe. It hurls insults at us, pierces us, makes us feel like nobodies, finally kills us (Ps 69:29; Isaiah 53:4,10, Exodus 1:10). Only in Christ is life worth living. Because where sin breaks down, love builds up. And God is love. (1 John 4:8) And through His death we are given life because we believe in God as the Creator and Jesus as Lord. And while we are still in human form and we still sin, Jesus intercedes for is and shines like a beacon so that we can follow the right path but also that we ourselves can be beacons. (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25) And the beauty of this is that Jesus, which by the way is an average name, was just an average person. He was not born into an earthly royal family, He was not beautiful, no one could pick Him out in a crowd. And all of that was to show us that we can indeed do it. That takes strength and faith and courage but we too can die to our sins and we can rise above our indiscretions and our sins and we can be like Him. God does say “My grace is sufficient” and that is to humble us, to make us realize that nothing we can do will get us to heaven. Only our belief that Jesus is the Savior.

Who is Jesus? (part 4)

Jesus was and is all about love. His explanation in John 14:21 foreshadows John's recognition of Him in John 21. Jesus said “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them." And what was Jesus' command but to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and body and love each other as we love ourselves. And He was willing to call them to the carpet for wanting to keep Him from dying on the cross. Only when He died would He be able to go to His Father. (John 21:28)

Who is Jesus? (part 3)

Not only did He send His Son, but He also announced characteristics of His Son and what others' reactions would be to Him. Psalm 38:11 in particular talks about the rejection of the Savior. And people recognized Him as coming in God's Name, as when people laid palm leaves at his feet and shouted, “Hosannah!” (John 12:13). And He loved people or else He truly would not have died for them. And He loved His apostles always, and cared for them teaching them how to survive as one of His lambs in this world of wolves. (John 13:1) and those He loved and found favor with reclined beside Him at the last supper, which was an honorable place to be. (John 13:23) And there were those who loved Him but still didn't know exactly who He was. When He had risen they thought His physical body was stolen. (John 20:2) Finally His own apostles recognized Him after He had risen but it took remembrance of things He had previously done and recognition that He was repeating those acts. (John 21:7). Peter in particular was not afraid to ask and converse with Jesus about His plans. (John 21:20).