I saw this post over at Holiday At Sea and thought I might share it with you.
"We like the idea of the warm fuzzy, slightly effeminate Jesus carrying lambs and hugging children. Sure we do. Why wouldn’t we? This Jesus is everyone’s best friend, He’s always smiling, always laughing and wants you to have your best life now.
The problem is that this isn’t the whole picture of Jesus. When you only see someone in one social setting, you can’t really say you know that person because you don’t, you know a certain side of that person. To really know someone, you must experience a wide swatch of life with them. You must witness their personality, not only in the good times but the bad.
Things become quite muddy, though, when we see a very isolated glimpse of someone, we think we know the whole person and then we attach our affections to our projected image of that person. We don’t necessarily feel affectionate towards the person as they are but as we think they are. What if many of us didn’t really know Jesus as He is but only as we think we’d like Him to be? The fact that Jesus doesn’t make more people uncomfortable should probably worry us. A lot.
Foreshadowing and foretelling Jesus, Psalm 110 describes Him as shattering kings and executing justice on the nations. When proclaiming Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptizer said that the axe was at the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10). Jude says that He is owned by Jesus who has designated certain people for condemnation and destroys those who refuse to believe. In Revelation 19, John sees the vision of Jesus on a white horse, his robe red from the blood of his enemies, a sword coming from His mouth finally and fully vindicating Himself and His reign.
Jesus is not who many think He is. We might think of Mr. Tumnus telling Lucy that Aslan was indeed a good lion but he was not a tame lion. We have tried to tame Jesus. But in doing so, we have lost a sense of what He came to do and indeed, what salvation even is. It is truly warfare, it is being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus (Colossians 1:13). We forget the idea that for every knee to bow (Philippians 2:9-11), some will need to be broken and Jesus, this same Jesus who laid down His life for His people, will be the One do break knees.
What does it mean for Christianity that we have tried to tame Jesus? What does it mean for the Gospel if we have not truly understood who Jesus is and what He came to do? Is your image of Jesus fully biblical?"
Hope you get something from that article. Ponder. Think. Are we serving and praying the same Jesus mentioned in the Bible or is this Jesus we prayed to the Jesus of our imagination?
Anyways while pondering go download this song and reflect even more.
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