Recently I have been finding myself straying away from Jesus frequently and looking to other things, relationships, accomplishments to satisfy myself. Nothing ever fully satisfies me and makes me keep searching for more. Now I know that Jesus is the only one to satisfy me, and I even find myself feeling convicted when I am running to other things. I tell myself “I need to love Jesus more. I need to put him first. He is the only one to satisfy me.” But I realized I was telling myself these things because I knew they were the right answers or the right things to do, not because I actually wanted to put Jesus first or love him more. I’ve become so numb to who Jesus is that sayings like those are just second nature to me. My heart isn’t really in it.
This whole semester, the cry of my heart has been “Make me believe that you are better.” While I know that Jesus is better, I have been so consumed in other things that my heart is having a hard time believing that Jesus actually IS better than all the things I have been chasing. Therefore, I am dedicating this Christmas break or however long it takes, to relearning who Jesus is. My prayer is that Jesus will allow me to see all that He is, so that I can fall in love with Him again, and love him so much that putting Him first in my life won’t even be hard because I will know and believe that Jesus really is the better than anything else in my life.
So I started today with learning about Jesus being the Son of God. Something I’ve known since I was little, and something I thought I had a pretty good grasp on until today. I wish I could convey everything I learned over the past 3 hours, but I just want to share some of the things that I thought were interesting.
Jesus is the Son of the living God and no one has seen God except the Son and he came to us to make God known. (John 1:18 )
There were others referred to as sons of God in the bible including the chosen people of God, Heavenly beings, Kings and rulers, and godly individuals but Jesus is unique. He is God’s Son eternally, not adopted. He obeys the Father perfectly, not imperfectly. He is an exact representation of His Father (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus and the Father share power, knowledge, authority, and glory so there is equality indicating that the two are one.
Something else I learned is how closely Jesus’ sonship is associated with suffering. This excerpt is from one of the articles and is too good to try to paraphrase:
“When Jesus was famished after a long fast, the tempter said to Him: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3, etc.). When Jesus was in agony on the cross, the passersby mocked Him and said: “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:40). These speakers forgot that Jesus is the Son of God. God, who seeks and serves and even suffers to save those whom He loves, the people of the world. He is not the son of some earthly king, who must show his might and save his pride by appearing to be victorious in the eyes of the world, according to the world’s standards. It was just because He is the Son of the God of love that He would not use His power for selfish purposes but perfectly fulfilled the will of His Father, who chose to reveal Himself and His love to all men through His suffering Servant/Son.”
Jesus is the Apostle of God. Many messengers and prophets were sent BY God but Jesus, the Son of God, was sent FROM God Himself and so he is called “Immanuel” meaning God with us. The purpose of the Son being sent by the Father is to reveal Him. Jesus, the Son of God, as God, is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is God revealed to man. Christ Jesus is the image of God to mankind and God revealed himself to mankind in Christ. (try to wrap your mind around that concept…)
Now here is my favorite part of what I learned today. Jesus is also the word of God. The word of God is eternal, even as God is eternal. As he is God’s eternal word, he is God’s eternal Son. Even among humans, through his word, a man makes himself known and brings out what is within Him. And that is exactly what Jesus does. He came to us to make God known to us. He could have just come and died for our sins, but he did so much more for us. He came and taught, worked, preached, healed, loved, showed us how to live life well, and to let us in on who God is, and see the glory of God. To know God better.
Jesus is God but he is not the Father. He is the Son of God. Phil 2:5-8 says “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death on the cross.”
Jesus who had all the qualities of God, humbly emptied himself and became like man for us. To reveal God to us. “The Sonship of Christ is revealed in this: He was revealed as God in the flesh, and yet submitted to God the Father. He was limited as a man, and He glorified God the Father.”
If you want to look more into this then here are the links that I learned a lot from. The first link showed me a lot of scripture about Jesus being the Son of God and the other two links are articles that helped me understand more.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/parallel/paral19.cfm
Kirby McDaniel 