JESUS

Getting to know Jesus isn't complex, because He's a person, He is uniquely man and uniquely God. Fortunately, Jesus didn't come to earth for religion, He came to have a relationship with us. He is readily understood through the lense of the Hebrew Messiah. People often don't understand how Jesus can be God, the Holy Spirit can be God, and God be God... To put it simply, the same way an entire family can carry one name, have access to an inheritance, have the same DNA, and share many more character features in common. This is how Jesus, The Holy Spirit and God can be One in every way, including in Authority and Power while still maintaining a unique identity. Jesus, the Messiah has been prophesied about over many centuries, stating that God would send a Deliverer to mankind because we were lost. Many movies and "super action heros" carry this same theme... but Jesus actually did it.

This is also unique, in the fact that instead of God being insistent on controlling our will, out of the Love God had for us... He offered us free will, giving us the ability to make a choice. Although those choices at times come with consequences resulting in many of the outcomes both good and bad that are made through humans today.

However, everyone has the right to freedom, because it is God given. The good outcome of this is God gave us the free will to choose Him and to have a relationship with Him. He expressed that love tangibly in an easy to understand way, by sending the physical expression of Himself...Jesus. That is part of the reason why the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God. Perhaps like your children are made up of you on some level. But more importantly Jesus has the Spiritual DNA of God, making Him spotless and a truly redemptive substitutive solution for our bad choices. There is no bad choice however, that Jesus is not able to redeem.

In the Bible it says of Jesus: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth""And of His fullness we have all received and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" John 1:1-5, 14, 16-17

Jesus is the Living Word. Meaning, He is the physical embodiment of thousands of years of prophecy fulfilled. The word is the Bible. The Bible consists of the Old and New Testament. As it relates to Jesus, the Old Testament told of His forcoming as the Messiah and the New Testament fulfilled this promise.

When Jesus quoted 'if you do not eat of my flesh or drink of my blood, you have no life in you" He was referring to Himself as the living word and the acceptance and faith in His blood shed on the cross for you as the Redemptive work of God through a Messiah. Just as someone who spends time attending a college or school to learn and grow... time in God's word is a part of a relationship with Jesus and is required everyday for our wellbeing. The culmination of this concept is expressed when Jesus said 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but out of every WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of God', in other words He is the Source. Jesus also said; "For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgement to the Son...", "I can of Myself do nothing, As I hear, I judge; and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" John 5:22,30.

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus is not 'a religion', He is One we can dwell in relationship with. This is a mistake to admit that Jesus IS Savior, but to simply reduce Him to only a religion.

He is much more, and in some ways much less complex. He is someone with whom we can talk, feels our pain, and knows what it means to suffer our struggles. This is one of the greatest miracles of the gospel. The gospel is the information about Jesus reconciling mankind back to God, because of our sin or in other words our 'bad choices' we become separated.

Religion's goal is to focus on behavior modification. Jesus focuses on the truth of the heart, not recognizing God or loving others because we have to... but wanting to Love God, because we choose to.

The Bible says 'No man is without sin', including those who say they are religious. However, the same way we spend time at the gym, at a place where others are reinforcing positive health and practicing the same fitness goals we have... that's the way church is meant to help us grow.

The church is not religion, the church is us.

Jesus said; “For where two or three are assembled in my name, I am there among them." Although this does not necessarily mean in flesh and bone, it means in Spirit Jesus is with us, and ready and willing to manifest Himself on behalf of believers. Meaning your prayers have tremendous Power. Although sometimes the answer to our prayers is a reminder that we need to make different choices, choices that more closely represent Jesus.

Some ask what Jesus looked like and since He did appear on earth, that's a logical question, exactly what Jesus looked like is not clear, because we do not have an official picture of Him... perhaps that was intentional by God. However we do know facts about His background like the fact that he was Jewish, grew up in the Middle East, and spent time in the region of Jerusalem.

However we know what God says about Jesus; "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." So by that, we know every ethnicity and physicality in creation was made through Jesus , and we know God is proud of the works of His hands, by the mere fact that He created it. That means God is immensely proud of every human being, because He created them. Also meaning every ethnicity is an individual expression of God HIMSELF. All of them being equally exquisite.

When asked 'WHO our neighbor is' Jesus replied with a story about 'The Good Samaritan'. This was a story highlighting someone helping another person, to the point of paying all their bills and nursing them back to health, who was not of their race, ethnicity, culture, or religion...

Meaning 'who' your neighbor is has no preferential limitations. Maybe this is why Jesus made clear the two GREATEST commandments are

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ’On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”