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How Do You Picture Jesus?
HOW DO YOU PICTURE JESUS?
There are many famous paintings of Jesus. Which is your favorite one?
There is the one in the garden. There is the one of Jesus and the children. There is the one of Jesus laughing. Can you picture them?
While no one alive today really knows what Jesus looked like when he walked the face of the earth, it is good for us to be reminded that Jesus was truly human and was like us in every way, except he was without sin. It is a comfort to be able to picture our Savior as one of us.
The Book of Revelation gives us a very different picture of Jesus. It doesn’t show him as he walked the face of the earth, but as he really is in glory. Quite a picture indeed! Read Revelation 1:12-16. How does this picture give you comfort? How does it give you discomfort?
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WHICH ARE WE? WHICH ARE YOU?
When Jesus addressed the seven churches of Asia Minor in the revelation he gave to John he pointed out a difference between the church in Ephesus and the church in Thyatira.
The church in Ephesus had a love that had grown cold. The one in Thyatira not only had been faithful in good works, it continued to grow in them.
How about us? How about you? Is weariness setting in on our commitment to Jesus? Or are we still excited about serving him with what we have and are?
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BE ON GUARD!
One of the themes that finds its way through the various messages to the churches of Asia Minor is proper theology.
Orthodox teaching.
That sounds stuffy doesn’t it? Maybe quaint and out dated as well.
Yet time and again Jesus either affirms those who are holding to the truth or warns those who have drifted from it.
Let’s make walking in the truth a priority! How can we grow in the truth?
Read the Bible yourself… regularly.
Compare what you hear in worship to the Bible.
Compare what you hear in the culture or media to the Bible.
Compare what other Christian authors write to the Bible.
Compare what non-Christians authors write to the Bible.
Pray for truth.
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COMBINATION CRUCIAL
Sodium by itself is dangerous. Chloride by itself is dangerous.
Christian deeds alone are dangerous. Christian teaching, no matter how orthodox, by itself is dangerous.
Sodium and chloride together? Salt. A preservative. A seasoning. The two need to be connected.
So in the Christian faith we want deeds and creeds connected. Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is self-righteousness.
The church in Thyatira had the right deeds but the wrong creeds. The church in Ephesus had the right creeds but the wrong deeds.
May God guide us to get and keep the right creeds and deeds together!
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VICTORY!
Remember as you face these difficult times that your are already victorious in Christ and will reign and shine forever. Paul writes in Romans 8:
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.