Jesus said, "FOLLOW ME." I asked, "Why?" (Part 2 - JESUS IS GOD???)
My
circuitous journey following Jesus began at age 19. Over 44 years later
the
question remains the same for the vast majority of people I interact
with on
any given day – “Why do you follow Jesus?” If you’ve ever asked that
question, or had that question
asked of you, I hope this series will help you to either begin to find
honest answers or be conversation starters to aid you in helping someone
else with their questions. I don’t have all the answers…but I’ve had a
multitude
of questions. Each section will contain a very short story regarding my
journey in
seeking to answer 'why?' - along with an image and a song or video clip
that helps
flesh out what my thought processes were along the way. You'll see the
roadblocks I encountered and the times when the clouds parted to give me
clarity.
JESUS IS GOD?
Once
I began to delve into the Bible, I wanted to see if I could find anything that demonstrated
how the love of Jesus related to the love of God. I found out that when the
Israelites (God's chosen people) camped in the desert, after God saved them from slavery in Egypt, God’s
presence dwelt in the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. “Then the cloud covered
the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” But I soon discovered that this was not the furthest God
went in interacting with humanity. He desired a face-to-face, in-the-flesh
encounter. So he sent his son, Jesus.
“The
Word [Jesus] became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” It was the Father’s plan that Jesus would completely
identify with people, without sinning, in order to help us to SEE the
love of God. The Supreme example of sacrificial love came from our heavenly
Father’s desire to draw people home in order that they might feel his embrace.
So he sent Jesus, who is also called Immanuel, which means “God with
us” – Jesus is God! The Word became flesh and literally ‘tented’ among us.
The same God who was with Israel in the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, chose
to give up everything in order to “pitch a tent” with people, his most
cherished creation. This was an offer for everyone to be part of his family,
not just an invitation to merely be ‘friends.’ That invitation included me!
“I think what pitching a tent
implies is that God wants to be on familiar terms with us. He wants us to be
close. He wants a lot of interaction. If you come into a community and build a
huge palace with a wall around it, it says one thing about your desires to be
with people. But if you pitch a tent in my backyard you will probably use my
bathroom and eat often at my table. This is why God became human. He came to
pitch a tent in our backyard so we would have a lot of dealings with him.”
Further proof that if I wanted to know what
God’s love is like, I had to investigate the life of Jesus as shown in the
Gospels. “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only [Jesus] who is at
the Father’s side has made him known.”
Jesus was not merely a good man, moral teacher, spiritual guru, or counselor. He
is LOVE, who came in the flesh so that I might grasp how he was
passionately pursuing me – even to the ends of the earth. So my journey
to truly understand the love of God began zeroing in on Jesus, Immanuel,
not his black-roped representatives.
Fighter
(Keith Urban) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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