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| Devotionals |
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| JESUS |
Billions worship Him.
More sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works
of art, and songs of praise have been inspired by Him than the
all of the great men and women of throughout history. Mel Gibson's
2004 movie "The Passion of the Christ," which depicted
the final hours of His life, earned more than $370 million in
the United States and became the seventh highest grossing movie
in U.S. history. In little more than three years, The DaVinci
Code, a story about Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of “the
Last Supper,” has become the best-selling adult novel of
all time, and has been made into a major motion picture starring
Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard.
So just who is this JESUS, anyway?
JESUS was a Jewish young man, born in an obscure village
six miles from Jerusalem, in the year 3 B.C., to a virgin and
her husband. He worked as a carpenter until He was thirty, and
for three and a half years He traveled as a preacher and a miracle
worker.
JESUS was a member of a despised minority, a citizen of
a country occupied by the Roman Empire, and a troublemaker to
many of His fellow Jews.
JESUS lived among an oppressed, cynical, embittered people!
Taxes were too high, freedom was limited, survival was uncertain,
and religion was judgmental, negative, and joyous.
JESUS inherited no illustrious name. His father was a
common laborer. His mother was a simple homespun type. He could
never point with pride to a prestigious address, rather, He
came from a city thought of as culturally deprived and morally
depraved. “Can anything come out of Nazareth?” was
a common expression.
JESUS was uneducated. Whatever His schooling was, it
was simple. The only account of His writing was a note He scribbled
in the sand. He had no academic degrees, no certificates of
special merit, award or achievement, and He won no trophies
or medals.
JESUS lives and died untraveled. He never visited the
exciting, glamorous world outside His on country. He saw none
of the sights so important to the secular world of His day,
like the glistening temples of Athens, or Rome, with its impressive
colosseum, theatres, or marble, pillar-lined streets of Alexandria.
Or the spectacular city of Ephesus! All He saw was people: lonely,
hurting, sick, depressed, fearful, troubled hearts…and
what He saw moved Him to reach out to them with a God-given
power to heal the sick, and a natural ability to tell stories
(parables) about the Kingdom and love of the God of Israel.
JESUS attracted a ragtag group of disciples…men
with broken speech, rough hands, and cracked fingernails. They
were unpolished, uncultured, ignorant failures who proved to
be unstable, unreliable, and disappointing in critical ways.
JESUS lived and died in poverty. He had no home of His
own, no insurance, no bank account, no pension…He had to
perform a miracle to acquire the money to pay His taxes!
JESUS remained unmarried, living all of His life without
the encouragement, comfort, or companionship of a wife. In a
society where children were a man’s greatest treasure,
it was more than a little odd that He never fathered a single
son or daughter.
JESUS was brutally honest about the hypocrisy of the
religious leaders who were using the Jewish Temple religious
system for their own financial gain. JESUS made false friends
and true enemies as He verbalized His disdain for corrupt religion.
JESUS was betrayed by a close confidant for thirty pieces
of silver, arrested by His own people, abandoned by all of His
friends, handed over to the government, mercilessly beaten within
an inch of His life, and forced to carry the instrument of His
death on a long, painful walk to the place of His death while
a mob cried out for His blood.
JESUS hung on His cross and cried out, “My God, My God
why have You forsaken Me?” Where was His Heavenly Father
when Jesus needed Him the most?
JESUS had always been good, kind, and very religious all
His life. Every Sabbath He was in the synagogue. He loved to
read the Holy Scriptures…He loved to pray…He loved
His Heavenly Father. But on the cross, when He needed divine
help the most, He was left…
alone,
misunderstood,
betrayed,
rejected,
hanging like a piece of meat on a crude piece of wood,
left to die an excruciatingly slow and painful death.
JESUS, at His death, was only thirty-three years old, died before
His mother, was viewed as a public disgrace, and was not given
a half-century or more to write His own books, start His own
business, raise His own family, and make His mark in the world.
Sounds depressing, doesn‘t it? JESUS, by all of the psychological
laws of human development, should have lived and died judgmental,
frustrated, critical, angry, cynical, violent-prone, emotionally-deprived,
pessimistic, and depressed. He should have been heard crying
out through tears…
“Life isn’t fair!”
“I’m too young to die!”
“Is this all there is?”
“Why Me?”
“I deserve better than this!”
And yet…
JESUS was just the opposite. No founder of any religion ever
spoke such words of faith, possibility, hope, love, compassion,
and victory.
JESUS said things like…
“All things are possible to those who believes.” (Mark
9: 23)
“The things which are impossible with men are possible
with God.” (Luke 18: 27)
“Father, all things are possible.” (Mark 14: 36)
“If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this
mountain, ‘Move…’ and nothing will be impossible.”
(Matt. 17: 20)
“With God nothing will be impossible!” (Luke 1: 37)
“With men, it is impossible, but not with God. For with
God all things are possible.” (Mark 10: 26-27)
“With God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19: 26)
JESUS saw problems as possibilities, saw outcasts as
priceless treasures, saw sick persons as completely healed,
and saw sinners as saints.
JESUS made a life-changing impact upon people! Peter,
a rough fisherman, became a great leader; Matthew, a greedy
businessman, became a Gospel writer, Mary Magdalene, a common
prostitute, became the first witness to the resurrection!
JESUS shocked His friends by rising from the dead, He proved
His resurrection by “many infallible proofs” (Acts
1: 3), and then ascended to the highest Heaven.
JESUS continued to impact the world, through His disciples,
who have referred to Him by such lofty titles as “the Messiah,
the Son of the Living God,” (Matt. 16: 16), “the Word
of God,” (John 1: 1), “the Lamb of God,” (John
1: 29), “the Bread of life“ (John 6: 35), “the
Way, the Truth, and the Life“ (John 14: 6), “the Good
Shepherd“ (John 10: 11), “the Resurrection and the
Life“ (John 11: 25), “the Image of the invisible God,
the Firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1: 15), “the
Judge of the living and the dead“ (2 Timothy 4: 1), “the
Firstborn from among the dead” (Col. 1: 18), “the
Savior of all“ (1 Tim. 4: 9), …not to mention “Lord
and God” (John 20: 28).
JESUS has received the worship of untold billions through
the past two-thousand years, and has earned the respect of some
of the great men and women throughout history, including Napoleon,
Gandhi, Einstein, Pascal, H. G. Wells, as well as U.S. Presidents
and world leaders.
JESUS of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more
millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon;
without science and learning, He shed more light on things human
and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without
the eloquence of school, He spoke such words of life as were
never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie
beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single
line, He set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more
sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art,
and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient
and modern times. (Philip Schaff)
JESUS is alive today and reigns in Heaven…and wants
to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior and Best Friend.
Won’t you call out to Him now, and get to know Him in the
Bible?
You owe it to yourself to get acquainted with JESUS!
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