Relating To Jesus Beyond The Gospels

The four gospels of the Bible give us amazing insight into the life of Jesus. We get to see the Son of God living among us as the Son of Man. He models perfectly what it means to love God and to love others. He also models perfect obedience that honors God ¹. For all eternity we will marvel at how God’s amazing love caused Him to make the ultimate sacrifice that restores us to right relationship with Him.

As believers we should diligently study the gospels and take to heart the example and teachings of Jesus that are recorded there. However, we are also called to engage in a right-now relationship with the risen Christ. In order to have a healthy relationship with Jesus, we must understand who he is right now, who he is beyond the gospels. Freezing Jesus in time and seeing him only as he was in the time of the gospels will have a negative effect on our present-day interaction with him.

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Call No One Pastor

It’s common for most churches to be led by an individual who is recognized as the pastor of that church, and that person is usually addressed as Pastor so-and-so, or sometimes just Pastor. This long-established practice is considered a way of showing love and respect. While love and respect are very biblical, addressing a select few within the church by official titles actually goes against the teaching of Jesus. Challenging a practice that is born out of good intentions may seem like nitpicking, but Jesus specifically addressed this issue for good reasons and we should give careful thought to what he said, and why he said it.

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God Hides Things From The Wise

There are several passages in the Bible that talk about truth being “hidden” from some people while being “revealed” to others. Seeing, understanding, and walking in truth is foundational to a right relationship with the Lord, so it’s rather disturbing to read in the scriptures that some people have important truths that are kept from them. The problem isn’t that the truth is too complicated or too difficult to understand. The problem is that people are being denied the opportunity to see and understand truth that is actually right in front of them. This doesn’t happen indiscriminately. God doesn’t draw straws to determine who gets it and who doesn’t. There are principles at work that determine whether truths are hidden from us or revealed to us, and ultimately it’s the condition of our heart that sets us up to see or leaves us in the dark. Continue reading “God Hides Things From The Wise” →

His Sheep Listen To His Voice

The Bible refers to believers as sheep. Over the years I’ve heard preachers take this analogy to an extreme and come to some very unflattering conclusions about how dumb and helpless sheep are. Rather than coming to negative conclusions based on our perception of what natural sheep are like, we should look closely at how Jesus describes the relationship between himself and his sheep. Jesus makes some very positive and encouraging statements about the shepherd/sheep relationship. Continue reading “His Sheep Listen To His Voice” →