What Is Jesus Like?
This question has been with me for some weeks now. It was prompted while thinking about a statement in John 15, “Live in Me. Make your home in me just as I do in you.” [The Message]
What does it mean to live in Him and to make our home in the God and Father of Jesus? It may be difficult for us to understand how He can assure us, “…just as I do in you.” That the God and Father of Jesus chooses to live within me is a seemingly unreasonable statement which only makes me feel even more honoured, privileged, blessed, encouraged, amazed and awestruck at His master plan. How good He is!
He knows me
He knows me just as I am – and He still loves me unconditionally because He has purposed to reveal Himself to me out of His nature of pure love. His longing is to share fellowship with us and this happens most when we are relaxed with Him and open and available to His company. Jesus longs for us to be like children with him – receptive, utterly dependent and totally reliant on His power and grace.
Because He knows me I can feel totally safe with Him, assured that in spite of where I am at He wants to be with me. Brennan Manning has said, “Adam and Eve both hid from the Lord and we use them as role models!” Our most natural inclination is to hide from him and yet He seeks daily intimacy with us!
A personal question
I had felt that this was a personal question Father was asking of me. It was not a call for me to run off and study the scriptures and return with a pat answer. We may think that because we are Christians and read the Book and therefore know a great deal about God, therefore we know God. It is not so, for we need an experiential knowledge of Him. We do know much about Him but He calls us to Himself that we might know Him personally. Learning to cultivate intimacy with Christ will not only become a joyful experience but will bring amazing freedom to our lives.
How do you see Me in everyday life?
When we have people visit our home we often find ourselves saying, “Please make yourselves at home!” And we do that because it is in our hearts for them to feel relaxed enough to be themselves. When people feel relaxed and cared for they are far more able to share their lives with you. That awareness of being at home with someone is what Father calls us to. When I am at home I speak freely and honestly. I am relaxed and available to chat and listen! I want to be involved in all that is going on in the home. All this of course is a simple picture of what Jesus is wanting us to experience with Himself.
Being at home with Jesus helps us to understand what He is like. What He enjoys! His care and concern for us as well as knowing what pleases Him is all part of being “In Christ!” He in me and me in him. It may be that we need a shift in our understanding. We can ‘be at home with Jesus’ today without waiting for heaven as some believe! It was John Wesley who said, “Best of all God is with us!”
Encouragement
Look what David has to say, “I thank you, High God – you are breathtaking!” and “Your thoughts – how rare, how beautiful! God I’ll never comprehend them!”
Let us renounce our illusions of God and surrender to Him today because – “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.”