FINDING THE REAL JESUS Daniel 8-10 | 3 John “Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’” —JOHN 1:45 How does a person seek for Jesus? Where do they look? There is important information about Philip in the verse above that is vital in knowing how we are to seek for Jesus. Philip told Nathanael they had found the one Moses and the prophets had written about. Where was Philip looking? What had he been reading? The answer, of course, is the Scriptures. If we are going to look for Christ, it would be wise to look where He is. The Bible is the only revelation God has given us of Himself. We can find the fingerprints of God outside of the Bible in numerous ways, but we will only ever find Jesus in the Bible. Our appetites may be whetted by seeing Jesus in other people’s lives but to come to know Him for ourselves we have to open our Bibles. Philip knew the Scriptures and did not find an existential Jesus; that is a Jesus who simply and conveniently plugs the gaps and meets the needs in his life, but the real Jesus, the One who had been spoken of prophetically throughout Scripture. And Philip recognized Him. “You are the one I found in Moses; You are the one I found in the prophecies.” It is possible to create our own Jesus. Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:4, “For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.” Paul is saying to this first generation of Christians, “How is it you are getting excited by a different Jesus to the Jesus of Scripture?” If we look at Jesus through the lens of our needs, we will get a distorted Jesus. If we look at Him through popular culture, it will be a trendy Jesus, but look at Him through the lens of Scripture and we will get the real Jesus. And like Philip, we will recognize Him. Had Philip not known the Scriptures, he would not have known who Jesus was, and the invitation to “Follow me” would have been meaningless to him. If the Bible remains a closed book in our homes, we will never come to know Christ, nor will we grow and mature in our Christian lives. From beginning to end, the Bible is a revelation of Christ and it is the written word that becomes the Living Word within us. Prayer: Thank You, God, for revealing Jesus to us in Scripture, and allowing the written word to become the Living Word within me. To Reflect Upon: Have I found the real Jesus as revealed in Scripture?
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 14:39:10 +0000
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