For years we have pounded the question into the hearts and minds of both Christians and pagans: WWJD? What would Jesus do? I'll tell you what he'd do, he'd do What The Fathers is Doing. (John 5;19) For even longer we've been told Jesus is our model. The truth is he didn't have a model, he had a relationship.He was not acting like someone else that he didn't know, he was carrying out instructions from his Father in heaven: the Creator of the earth.
I don't know about you, but am tired of hearing what Jesus would do. Jesus would feed the poor, he would be nice to gays, he would judge the US for being sinful and the list goes on. Whatever it is we feel motivated to accomplish in the name of Jesus, we want to ascribe a specific behavior to him that promotes our personal agenda. Some think he was a wimpy soft spoken nerd that only saves iPhone users. Others think that he is the thundering God who's voice shatters the cedars of Lebanon and whatever folks they disagree with. To others, he is just another god of another religion in which people kill each other over.
Jesus is not our model, and we don't copy the acts of Jesus. We don't get to decide this is how Jesus would act to make sure that our good behavior gets heavenly credit. That my friends in pure and unadulterated RELIGION. We are called to be Jesus to one another. How do men know how to treat their wives? Jesus wasn't married. (He will be!) how do we know how to confront an unbelieving coworker? Jesus didn't have one; not even Judas was an unbeliever.
To be like Jesus, we must do what the Father is doing - WTFD! We need to operate in discernment and wisdom which is God's, not the logic of mankind. We'd have to spend a lot of time in prayer and years studying the word of God. We have to be willing to die, and to be willing to be the last one believing the truth of the Gospel message... we'd have to hear the Father's instructions, whether they were the logos word becoming alive to us as rhema, or the still small voice of God in our spirit.
You know, we'd have to stop telling God what to do, and how to do it. We'd have to give up trying, and abandon all our own desires, and then, maybe we'd hear God instead of assuming which Jesus we'd like him to be, and do that.
Impersonating Jesus is not Christianity, hearing the voice of God and doing it is. Think about all the sermons that you've heard, all that teachings that you've sat listening to; it's probably a lot! Ask yourself, how many of them taught you to hear the voice of God for yourself? I am talking about the still small voice, not reading some words off the page and acting it out. I am not saying that God does not use the word of God, he does. But we must know when it is Him that is instructing us. Many cults base their actions on the word of God, but is not God. Because we have a personal relationship, we know His voice, and we can have a conversation with our Creator! We can hear what it is that he wants us to do, and then do it.
Do you know the voice of God? What are some ways that you have relationship with him?
I don't know about you, but am tired of hearing what Jesus would do. Jesus would feed the poor, he would be nice to gays, he would judge the US for being sinful and the list goes on. Whatever it is we feel motivated to accomplish in the name of Jesus, we want to ascribe a specific behavior to him that promotes our personal agenda. Some think he was a wimpy soft spoken nerd that only saves iPhone users. Others think that he is the thundering God who's voice shatters the cedars of Lebanon and whatever folks they disagree with. To others, he is just another god of another religion in which people kill each other over.
Jesus is not our model, and we don't copy the acts of Jesus. We don't get to decide this is how Jesus would act to make sure that our good behavior gets heavenly credit. That my friends in pure and unadulterated RELIGION. We are called to be Jesus to one another. How do men know how to treat their wives? Jesus wasn't married. (He will be!) how do we know how to confront an unbelieving coworker? Jesus didn't have one; not even Judas was an unbeliever.
To be like Jesus, we must do what the Father is doing - WTFD! We need to operate in discernment and wisdom which is God's, not the logic of mankind. We'd have to spend a lot of time in prayer and years studying the word of God. We have to be willing to die, and to be willing to be the last one believing the truth of the Gospel message... we'd have to hear the Father's instructions, whether they were the logos word becoming alive to us as rhema, or the still small voice of God in our spirit.
You know, we'd have to stop telling God what to do, and how to do it. We'd have to give up trying, and abandon all our own desires, and then, maybe we'd hear God instead of assuming which Jesus we'd like him to be, and do that.
Impersonating Jesus is not Christianity, hearing the voice of God and doing it is. Think about all the sermons that you've heard, all that teachings that you've sat listening to; it's probably a lot! Ask yourself, how many of them taught you to hear the voice of God for yourself? I am talking about the still small voice, not reading some words off the page and acting it out. I am not saying that God does not use the word of God, he does. But we must know when it is Him that is instructing us. Many cults base their actions on the word of God, but is not God. Because we have a personal relationship, we know His voice, and we can have a conversation with our Creator! We can hear what it is that he wants us to do, and then do it.
Do you know the voice of God? What are some ways that you have relationship with him?
9 comments:
This post...is awesome.
Thanks for busting my head on this rainy Friday morning in MD.
nicodemusatnite.com
We really ARE spiritual twins!
We don't have to follow Jesus' example, we ARE the example because Jesus is living in and through us. As Paul said, "It is not I that lives, but Christ who lives in me."
Have you been reading the same book I've been reading? Jesus Manifesto, by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola. It is a great read and refreshing in the midst of so much "Christian" conversations. The book simply is Jesus.
Amen! Thanks for putting this so clearly. Jesus' actions came from the Father's heart; so must ours, or we risk both not doing what God is asking of us, and doing 'good things' in the wrong way, at the wrong time, for the wrong people. We can only know what He wants us to do if we listen to Him tell us!
Amen! Great post! We have a post on our blog that says maybe you're better off without Jesus, talking to those who see Jesus as a teacher and not the Son of God. If you try to follow what Jesus teaches in your own power, you will fail, but if His Holy Spirit dwells with in you, you can accomplish the tasks Christ sets before you. Oswald Chambers says something similar, he said that Jesus did not come with any new ideas but came to fulfill what was already here but undiscerned. He came to enable us to follow what the Father said.
Great post! I liked your image about the Klondike bar too. :)
Good information David.
However, I believe the words spoken by Jesus was informational and a guide for us to follow ( Thus I follow Jesus' words). As we all know Jesus was God in human form.
Just as He carried out instructions from His Father, His words reflects the truth of God and taught those words that was overlooked or ignored by the priest in biblical times.
The priest were so enamored into the legal aspects of Moses'law that they failed to see or hear the true words of God. So as we worship God, we also worship Jesus as our saviour.
I love that bumper sticker. Would my fellow brothers be offended if it was on my car?
For me the accurate number of sermons would be 1079 sermons heard in my life - and the catch is if pastors taught how to hear the voice of God then they wouldn't be needed to preach so much...I don't mean to make them out to sound malicious, merely misguided.
Wow lots of great comments!
@Charlie C - let me know if you have any deeper insight, I'd be interested to know.
@Andrea - yes, we have lots in common. But I have not read a book for a long time. I have been working on my own ;)
@Susan - amen. I can't believe we are not taught that! Thanks for reading along.
@Carla - thanks for reminding me to visit you guys - I get sort of busy.
@Larry - I like the words of Jesus, but unless we hear God, we won't know which one to do right now. IE: "Greet each other with a holy kiss" is in the Bible 3 times, do Americans do that? Few if any.
Jesus is certainly and example, but we must hear God and do it. I don't see any other way to know how to apply the Bible without knowledge of God's personal will for us.
@CCC - well you might want to listen to me some time. ;)
David:
If you hear the voice of God, it can also be the voice of Jesus or the Holy Spirit too. You have to remember that the Holy Spirit is the intecessor for God.
God speaks to us in many ways so it isn't always a spoken word entirely to hear from God.
Reading some of the scripture from John, I remember one that comes to mind. If you have seen Me you have seen the Father ( God). Jonh14; 9-11.
Appreciate this post. It really is about the relationship.
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