God & Man

It is dark and quiet in the Fisher house this morning. . . I am going to soak up these precious few moments before Erin becomes Mom and spend some time alone with Jesus. I'm not sure how long I'll have, so I'm going to get straight to the point here.

I have been reading a fabulous book called "ReJesus." I absolutely love it. One of the main points the author makes is totally convicting and is transforming the way I view Christ. I'll paraphrase as best I can. . .

Jesus was both God and man. Somehow, miraculously, he was 100% God and simultaneously 100% man. I don't know how that worked exactly, but finding that even balance of Jesus' deity and humanity is crucial to understanding who he really was.

Some of us (as individuals or as congregations) tend to overemphasize one of the aspects of Jesus' character over the other. We focus so greatly on his deity that we lose sight of his humanity, or we make him so human that he no longer holds the place of God. I believe (as does the author) that most Christians in America have done the former.

We have so focused on Jesus' deity that we have forgotten that he was also completely human. This is huge, because each aspect of Jesus' person shapes the way we respond to him. When we focus on Jesus as God the result is adoration. When we focus on Jesus as man the result is imitation. We, as Christians, are called to do both.

When we see Jesus solely as God, then we only have to adore him because we could never be him anyway. We gain a false sense of confidence in our Christian lives because it feels right to simply adore Christ. But the bible teaches all over the place that we are supposed to actually live like Jesus did! Jesus himself said that we could do even greater things than him (Jn 14:12)!!

I long to adore Christ in the deepest parts of my soul, but I also recognize that he lived his life on this earth as a man -and in that capacity I am called to follow in his footsteps.

Today, remember both sides of the person of Jesus and live out both callings of the Christian life.

Adore him, and then go and be him.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is
not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:3-6