Jesus who?

[jordie]

Here is a thought........

It occurred to be the other day that I have been worshipping the wrong God. I want to know who the real Jesus is....

Someone once said to me that sometimes God shows you who he isn't before he shows you who he is....

I don't think my mental image of Jesus, or even my 'emotional' image of Jesus are right anymore. I have been dictated to by centuries of tradition.....even traditional images of Jesus through movies and pictures etc.....

I want to meet the man behind the myth, and I want a relationship with him that is actually going to change who I am. I don't want to believe the lies I have been told since I was a child anymore...

Suddenly that thought is very freeing....what if Jesus isn't who I think he is at all....strangely it doesn't feel scarey to consider that.....its very liberating in fact to ask God or Jesus to just be who they are instead of who the church says they are (or has for millenia said that they are)....

That means a whole new relationship is just around the corner......I can just let Jesus talk to me in his own way, and allow him to deal with my hurts with true love not pretend love....which is the only type of love I have known from christians.....

I have sat here for a few months and read your thoughts, your stories, your pain and your frustration and have felt very helpless......I wish I could help you all but words are not enough......

If God is who he says he is...in scripture not through the church.....then he is able to heal us......enable us......strengthen and comfort us........but even those words seem feeble....devoid of any virture through over-use......

This much I believe...

However vain, however foolish, however persistent the actions of men are in attempting to live and teach others to live the christian life, the character and integrity of Christ will never be broken or sullied by them.

[Hope 98]

I like the way you think! :D

I also believe that you're on the right road. I'd like to encourage you to keep going in the same direction.

[Theodora]

"Trust the process"...!!!....as I've heard others say here!

Have you read any books by Marcus Borg? I just did a search on amazon.com for a remembered title and found others which looked interesting as well...here are just three of his books:

1, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith -- by Marcus J. Borg;

2. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time : The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith -- by Marcus J. Borg; Paperback

3. Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally -- by Marcus J. Borg; Paperback

(Of those, I've read #2 and found it moderately helpful---though it's been a while since I've looked at this.)

Don't be afraid of "digging deeper"--- and don't feel that you are alone in your quest either! There's much good contemporary theology which points toward doing exactly the kind of work that you describe.

Blessings to you and yours this night/day!!!

Theodora

[Hope 98]

Another good book is "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Phillip Yancy.

I think the thing that worked best for me though was reading the gospels with the determination to understand what God was really trying to tell me through them.

God meets any and all who seek Him. I can promise that...because God promised that first.

[apike]

At one point not too long ago I realized that my thinking about who God is is just that, my thinking. I asked God to show me who He is and He is doing that in His Word and my life. Painfully I will admit because it means tossing out the rubbish, digging up the dirt and scrubbing out the rooms of my heart.

[Janice]

If I belive that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, then I have my answer as to who Jeus is. It's all in the book. ;)

[Jerry]

I have sat here for a few months and read your thoughts, your stories, your pain and your frustration and have felt very helpless......I wish I could help you all but words are not enough......




Jordie,,,,,,,,,,Christ,,,,,,,,,,,,,Christ,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,Jordie ;)

[jordie]

:D

Shoot..........it took me a few seconds to get it..........:D


They say brevity is the source of wit........but that was more like morse code..:D

[Jerry]

:D

Shoot..........it took me a few seconds to get it..........:D


They say brevity is the source of wit........but that was more like morse code..:D

:D
Love Jerry

[Forsaken]

Dear Jordie,

I think your about to embark on an exciting, wonderful and sometimes frustrating journey.

A few words of expectation :)

There is no end to the journey, everytime you think you have almost reached the end, it begins again.

A word of humble advice.. (which you already know) :)

When something feels wrong, it almost always is. Always trust yourself (God within) Having said this, what is wrong for you can be right for others. Rarely trust others. Only God can be truely trusted.

God always always loves you, no more or no less, no matter what you do. Even if you don't want him to.. (This was my hardest lesson)

Finally,
Simply ask.. and you shall recieve.. God wants to reveal it to you!!

[SpinningHead]

I've been doing one of those "Praying through the Bible in a year" books. It takes me from OT to NT in a reading. I've been doing it since January and have noticed a few things on my (w/out any preaching...go figure).

I've always had issues w/ how harsh God seemed in the OT (the one that was mostly preached at me and made me feel like He was ultimater sheriff in town just waiting for my goof ups). And one would see examples of this especially in Exodus/Leviticus.

At the same time I'm reading Matthew & Mark...and there's the Jesus the OT talks about...the one who wanted to gather Isreal under His protective love like a hen does w/ her chicks...when Isreal didn't respond, he gathered the entire world. There's the Jesus who doesn't get mad at the bleeding woman who just knows if she can touch his garment, she'll be healed...steeling his power...he has compassion on her. There's the Jesus who doesn't judge the sinners but has lunch with them. There's the Jesus who gave me permission to love myself. There's the Jesus who's beyond frustrated with the religious rules & regulations imburdened upon those he came to love, those he's always loved. There's the Jesus who gave us the new covenant that did away with the harsh retribution for our sin although judgement was necessary...I see that now. Jesus took that judgement for us. Hallelujah! That's the Jesus who "saved" me from having to face that judgement and punishment...That's the God I choose!! That's the God who loved me first!!

Somebody get me a microphone!!!

[pygmalyn]

Hi Jordie...

I'm fairly new to this site, but I wanted to let you know of a great book to read along these lines...it helped me so much ... I keep re-reading it...

It's "Abba's Child" by Brennan Manning. You can get it fairly inexpensively used from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1576833348/qid=1141775801/ref=sr_pb_a//104-2414243-5827138?condition=all

~ pygmalyn

[mary]

"We love him, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19.)

Dear Jordie, you are about to have the most wonderful "ride" of your life! Getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ and His power, strength, mercy, grace, love... There is nothing on earth like it! Not falling in love for the first time - that pales miserably in comparison... To think that the Eternal God has set His love upon us, individually, and sent His only begotten Son to be the perfect atonement for our sins, to die the death that was rightfully ours - and then to realize that the same Power that spoke the earth into being from nothingness and that raised our Lord from death is the very one that raises us to spiritual life! It's so wonderful that I can't speak of it without crying... And it's been over 11 years for me since the Lord came into my life and claimed me, sinful, extremely flawed me.

"Why look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5b) When once you see and experience spiritual life, beautiful, spiritual life, you lose your taste for everything else... Sometimes I wonder why I'm so upset about that rank little snakepit whose "lech" pastor threw me out, because I WAS "looking for the living among the dead," and I should have known better than that! But these people are skilled liars. After all, they follow their father, the Father of Lies (John 8:44); they do his bidding in all things, not the Lord's. And this time, a minister who was "one of those," apparently, fooled me... Nuts. :( Won't happen again.

Jordie, you are in my prayers. Grace and peace and mercy and love to you!

mary

[Hope 98]

"We love him, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19.)

Dear Jordie, you are about to have the most wonderful "ride" of your life! Getting to know the Lord Jesus Christ and His power, strength, mercy, grace, love... There is nothing on earth like it! Not falling in love for the first time - that pales miserably in comparison... To think that the Eternal God has set His love upon us, individually, and sent His only begotten Son to be the perfect atonement for our sins, to die the death that was rightfully ours - and then to realize that the same Power that spoke the earth into being from nothingness and that raised our Lord from death is the very one that raises us to spiritual life! It's so wonderful that I can't speak of it without crying... And it's been over 11 years for me since the Lord came into my life and claimed me, sinful, extremely flawed me.

mary

The amazing thing for me about your post was that 1 John 4:19 was a pivotal point in this past Sunday's sermon. The pastor noted that while in many other passages of scripture we are commanded to "love" the translation from Greek is "phileo" or a variation of it. The original Greek in this verse, as you may expect, used the term "agape" in reference to God's love. The thing that surprised me was that our love for God is translated from "agape" as well.

In that passage, our pastor interpreted that we are able to love God selflessly because God selflessly loved us first. For me that's new meaning to the expression "heart to heart".

I'd say AWESOME! but it's an expression that I'm really getting tired of. :D

[Theodora]

...and I think his interpretation of the more accurate translation of "love" was very interesting as well. Thanks for your comments!

Love and prayers--

Theodora

The amazing thing for me about your post was that 1 John 4:19 was a pivotal point in this past Sunday's sermon. The pastor noted that while in many other passages of scripture we are commanded to "love" the translation from Greek is "phileo" or a variation of it. The original Greek in this verse, as you may expect, used the term "agape" in reference to God's love. The thing that surprised me was that our love for God is translated from "agape" as well.

In that passage, our pastor interpreted that we are able to love God selflessly because God selflessly loved us first. For me that's new meaning to the expression "heart to heart".

I'd say AWESOME! but it's an expression that I'm really getting tired of. :D

[hornblower]

Jordie, I was so blessed by this post. Thankyou.:)

[mary]

For Jordie and anyone else who might be blessed by this:

A lovely Christian woman with whom I used to work (in a bankruptcy law practice, of all things!) recently e-mailed me this:

FIRST, LOVE GOD
by Brenda J. Davis

More than 20 years ago, an explosion went off within me when I first became aware that I had the capacity to go beyond uninspired, exacting obedience to increasing love and passion for God. Slowly I began to understand how the Spirit of God in me reaches out to love God through me.

Before that, I had struggled to win God's approval through human determination and achievement. But the yoke of religion never permitted me the unattainable luxury of acceptance.

I had wanted to love God even as a little girl; I just didn't think I could love Him enough. Imagine my relief when I began to understand that God put the desire in me to love Him and that He would make it possible for me to fulfill it.

In commenting on the greatest commandment - to love God with every part of our beings (see Matthew 22:37) - Matthew Henry wrote: "All obedience begins in the affections, and nothing in religion is done right that is not done there first... Man is a creature cut out for love."

It's possible to work for God and not love Him. But it is foolish to settle for demanding religious observances that are not only void of passion but also lacking in eternal value.

I've had more than one married person tell me that although having a devoted spouse is a blessing, it is not a substitute for the intimacy we are designed to enjoy in God's presence alone. Most of us know this already, but either out of habit or response to what we perceive as a desperate need, we try to fulfill this God-given desire for intimacy through unhealthy means that eventually will imprison us.

Why do we shy away from intimately knowing our heavenly Bridegroom? In "The Pursuit of God," A. W. Tozer says that one major hindrance in our face-to-face experience with Jesus is the veil that continues to cover our hearts.

This veil is comprised of what he terms the "self-sins:" self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration [and] self-love, among others. They are hard to unseat due to the fact that they are so tightly interwoven into our nature and upheld by our culture.

Rather than a burdensome obligation, the command to love God is, in essence, the pronouncement of a liberating privilege, for Scriptural commands can be obeyed only by the Spirit of God in us. As one author wrote, "Only God can love God." (Emphasis is mine, mary)

How freeing that knowledge is. Henry put it this way: If [love] be the fulfilling of the law, surely the yoke of the command is very easy. Love is the rest and satisfaction of the soul; if we walk in this good old way, we shall find rest.

If we've placed other things in the space God formed within us for Himself, these will obstruct our view of Him and leave us empty and enslaved. But giving first place to our First Love and offering to Him what He desires most will bring liberty and the fulfillment of our deepest needs for this life and the one to come.

"Only God can love God" -- how true! How "1 John 4:19!" We can know that He loves us and has saved us because He has given us, by His Spirit, that love for Him! He's done it all... Wow. :) :) :D

mary