thepilgrim111
Member
I don't know if this is accordin to the rules or not, but here is an article I wrote on my site "SaintsAll.com".
Years ago there was an academic initiative that became known as “The Search for the Historical Jesus.” The smart people thought, "Well, maybe we ought to get search out the Gospels to find out who this Jesus fellow really was.” These people took pieces and parts of the Gospel of Christ and constructed a picture of this fellow Jesus. Actually what these smart people were doing (judging by the outcome of their endeavors) was looking into an imperfect mirror at their own reflections. This is the only explanation I can come up with that would explain why the Jesus they found looked an awful lot like themselves or any other tom, dick, or Harry you might meet.
The way it was then is the way it is now.
At times I feel this is essentially what has happened in our churches today. Our “Jesus” is literally a reflection of ourselves. This is the constant danger when we do not simply read the Scriptures and embrace their testimony regarding Jesus Christ: many of us create a Jesus in our own image, more often than not domesticated. regrettably, much that dominates the christian media appears to be affected by this same tendency. Any Jesus who is not both Savior and Lord, Sacrificial Lamb of God and King, cannot be the Jesus of the Gospels. Also any Jesus who does not call us to radical, sacrificial, and yes, painful, discipleship, simply cannot be the genuine Jesus. I really think our problem as Christians is that we open the Bible and attempt to fit the Scriptures to our lives, our way of living; when we should be fitting ourselves and our lives to the scriptures. We want to see Jesus not as He is but as we would like him to be. A Jesus that condones our little foibles and sins; if not condones, at least puts up with them. A Jesus that accepts us as we are instead of a Jesus that demands that we change.
It is we who must change; not God!
A person that does not change, but stays just as they were before their so-called conversion cannot be called a Christian. Jesus calls us to repentance to a changed life, to a life that corresponds to His life. I suspect this is at the root of the problem. The heart of man is deceitful, it cannot be trusted to do the right thing in regard to God. It sees itself as good; It sees no need to change. So what do we do is attempt to change God. How sad it is that the natural man is this way, but this is the way He is.
Jer 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" KJV
The heart is deceitful "the heart is supplanting-tortuous-full of windings-insidious;" lying ever at the catch; striving to avail itself of every favourable circumstance to gratify its propensities to pride, ambition, evil desire, and corruption of all kinds. And desperately wicked, and is wretched, or feeble; distressed beyond all things, in consequence of the wickedness that is in it. Who can know it? It even hides itself from itself; so that its owner does not know it. A corrupt heart is the worst enemy the fallen creature can have; it is full of evil devices, of deceit, of folly, and abomination; and its owner knows not what is in him till it boils over, and is often past remedy before the evil is perceived. Therefore, trust not in man, whose purposes are continually changing, and who is actuated only by motives of self-interest. From Adam Clarke's Commentary
God must not be changed, but you must be changed.
The only way to overcome the heart that directs the life of the natural man is to take the Scriptures as indeed the Word of God. Accept the fact that they mean exactly what they say and approach God accordingly. Accept that when God says your heart is a cold dead hard lump of coal; it is indeed that. Accept that when God says you are doomed to an eternity away from Him because you are not fit to be part of His Kingdom it is the truth. Accept that, just as God says in His Word, the Bible, there is only on way to get right with Him; and that way is through the blood of Jesus Christ; that that is the way it is.
Let's look at the real picture.
The Bible draws us a true picture of Jesus; the picture of the perfect, sinless, obedient, Jesus Christ; both God and man; both the Savior and the King. We cannot make Jesus into want we want Him to be; We must let Jesus make us into who He wants us to be. The only way that becomes possible is when we believe what God tells us about Jesus (with no reservations) and turn from our old way of life (with no reservations) and confess with our mouth that He is who He is; our Savior and Lord.
So let us pray that the church will stop painting pretty pictures from the perspective of man and let it begin to paint the Truth from the perspective of God.
Years ago there was an academic initiative that became known as “The Search for the Historical Jesus.” The smart people thought, "Well, maybe we ought to get search out the Gospels to find out who this Jesus fellow really was.” These people took pieces and parts of the Gospel of Christ and constructed a picture of this fellow Jesus. Actually what these smart people were doing (judging by the outcome of their endeavors) was looking into an imperfect mirror at their own reflections. This is the only explanation I can come up with that would explain why the Jesus they found looked an awful lot like themselves or any other tom, dick, or Harry you might meet.
The way it was then is the way it is now.
At times I feel this is essentially what has happened in our churches today. Our “Jesus” is literally a reflection of ourselves. This is the constant danger when we do not simply read the Scriptures and embrace their testimony regarding Jesus Christ: many of us create a Jesus in our own image, more often than not domesticated. regrettably, much that dominates the christian media appears to be affected by this same tendency. Any Jesus who is not both Savior and Lord, Sacrificial Lamb of God and King, cannot be the Jesus of the Gospels. Also any Jesus who does not call us to radical, sacrificial, and yes, painful, discipleship, simply cannot be the genuine Jesus. I really think our problem as Christians is that we open the Bible and attempt to fit the Scriptures to our lives, our way of living; when we should be fitting ourselves and our lives to the scriptures. We want to see Jesus not as He is but as we would like him to be. A Jesus that condones our little foibles and sins; if not condones, at least puts up with them. A Jesus that accepts us as we are instead of a Jesus that demands that we change.
It is we who must change; not God!
A person that does not change, but stays just as they were before their so-called conversion cannot be called a Christian. Jesus calls us to repentance to a changed life, to a life that corresponds to His life. I suspect this is at the root of the problem. The heart of man is deceitful, it cannot be trusted to do the right thing in regard to God. It sees itself as good; It sees no need to change. So what do we do is attempt to change God. How sad it is that the natural man is this way, but this is the way He is.
Jer 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" KJV
The heart is deceitful "the heart is supplanting-tortuous-full of windings-insidious;" lying ever at the catch; striving to avail itself of every favourable circumstance to gratify its propensities to pride, ambition, evil desire, and corruption of all kinds. And desperately wicked, and is wretched, or feeble; distressed beyond all things, in consequence of the wickedness that is in it. Who can know it? It even hides itself from itself; so that its owner does not know it. A corrupt heart is the worst enemy the fallen creature can have; it is full of evil devices, of deceit, of folly, and abomination; and its owner knows not what is in him till it boils over, and is often past remedy before the evil is perceived. Therefore, trust not in man, whose purposes are continually changing, and who is actuated only by motives of self-interest. From Adam Clarke's Commentary
God must not be changed, but you must be changed.
The only way to overcome the heart that directs the life of the natural man is to take the Scriptures as indeed the Word of God. Accept the fact that they mean exactly what they say and approach God accordingly. Accept that when God says your heart is a cold dead hard lump of coal; it is indeed that. Accept that when God says you are doomed to an eternity away from Him because you are not fit to be part of His Kingdom it is the truth. Accept that, just as God says in His Word, the Bible, there is only on way to get right with Him; and that way is through the blood of Jesus Christ; that that is the way it is.
Let's look at the real picture.
The Bible draws us a true picture of Jesus; the picture of the perfect, sinless, obedient, Jesus Christ; both God and man; both the Savior and the King. We cannot make Jesus into want we want Him to be; We must let Jesus make us into who He wants us to be. The only way that becomes possible is when we believe what God tells us about Jesus (with no reservations) and turn from our old way of life (with no reservations) and confess with our mouth that He is who He is; our Savior and Lord.
So let us pray that the church will stop painting pretty pictures from the perspective of man and let it begin to paint the Truth from the perspective of God.
The only thing I could add to this is none of us have ever seen Jesus physically to know exactly what He looked like, but we do know Him by His attributes of love, humility and even His chastisements. We believe by faith, we repent by faith and we live by faith in someone we can not see, but have hope in as the evidence of the things hoped for is set before us by Gods never changing word.
