Jesus, On His Terms

Condescended - It means 'to descend to be with.' 
It's a unique word to describe what God did in the incarnation; how God chose to speak to us through Christ. He 'descended to be with' us.

Whether people realize it or not - God is fairly creative in how He has spoken to humanity.
To Abraham, He appeared at the door of a tent as a traveler. 
To Moses, He appeared on a hill side as the Burning Bush.
To Joshua, He appeared before Jericho as a soldier.
To Hagar, in the wilderness as a friend.
He spoke each time with words they needed to carry out the will of God. 
And when God chose to speak to the Nation - He used prophets.

But none of these matched the Son of God becoming a man in the person of Jesus Christ through the incarnation. After 400 years of silence, God chose to speak in authority and finality through His Son. 
And even today, the words He spoke still linger

The first words God spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Hagar were 'Fear Not.'
The angels as messengers of God, speaking to Gideon, Daniel, Mary and the Shepherds was 'Fear Not.'
As you read the Bible, you sort of get the feeling that 'Fear Not' was a divine 'Howdy.'
But what it tells us is that the appearance of God always struck fear in the hearts of man.
Yet, when God to speak in finality, He came in the most unassuming and least threatening way He possibly could - God became a new born baby.
And unless you have a volcanic diaper to change - babies just aren't scary.

But even though God came in a manner which would not frighten, people were disappointed with the Messiah. 
In truth, not much has changed. 
Millions upon millions of Christians are disappointed with the Lord for one reason or another. Maybe it is because of a lost love or a lost child; disease may have ravaged a person you deeply care about; rejection from others - all in all, there are thousands of reasons we may feel that God has disappointed us.
Like the ancients, Jesus wasn't what they expected at all - nor is He often what we expect in our lives.
What we need to learn is to not make Him into the Jesus we want Him to be, but allow Him to be the Jesus Christ He is - the Lord of All.
That is the place where our desire ends, His begins and worship in our hearts starts to praise our Everlasting Father.

Think About It:

When we have difficult times even tragic times, many Christians will demand that God speak from the heavens and decree a change in our situation.
We want a voice that tells us His will and way for our lives; we believe if this happens we will listen with obedient hearts and follow Him with strict adherence to all He desires. 
But truthfully, does that really sound like something we would do?

You see, Jesus came and made God's will absolutely clear, and it was rejected.
As He spoke, "Follow Me," or "This is how you should pray...." people tended not to listen and many times they didn't like what He had to say.
The fact is, many still didn't follow Him across the street much less to the Cross; and as far as praying goes - we have the example and the knowledge, but even today we still don't pray.

Instead of instant and absolute obedience to His voice, Jesus received what He receives now - open questions. Anybody can debate what God "really" wants, but only the Holy Spirit can communicate to us exactly what God demands of us in our obedience.
He was not silent, nor is He silent today.

Also when in a hard time, we want God to show Himself and prove that our faith is not in vain and that we haven't been wasting our time in serving Him. 
Well, God isn't hidden today - He's seen through His people; but in the first century they actually saw God in flesh. He took shape in the world.
God showed up with a name, a face and an address in Nazareth. His message about seeing God: 'Anyone who has seen Me, has seen the Father.'
It was blunt, but true; and the people just couldn't accept it.

Jesus' visibility and bold claims about being God in flesh brought on a new problem: Where was the smoke and fire from the Old Testament experiences with God?
Where was the lightening and the striking dead of evil people?
Jesus as a person just didn't match up to what people thought God should be.

Jesus was Mary's boy; even His brothers thought He was nuts (that's a clinical term we use for psychologically challenged). He was ordinary. 
The truth is that Jesus' skin got in the way.
Our problem today is not that God does not show Himself, it's that we so often reject Him because we will reject His body which comes in the form of fallen men and women in the world. 

Then we have another problem - when we go through a trial, we question the 'fairness' of God. You know, like Job - going through something that he didn't deserve and wondering why.
We go through things like this as well in our lives and we still wonder why God is being so unfair to us.

In Jesus' time, all people believed the Messiah would come and set things right just as we all believe about God's involvement in our lives. He is going to come in our lives, kick around the evil doers and set things right. If I was mistreated wrongly, He will vindicate me.
Isn't that what we believe?

The prophets even promised as much when they claimed the Messiah would swallow up death and wipe tears away from all faces.
When the Messiah did come it is true that He did heal many but it is also true that Jesus left many more not healed. Lazarus was raised from the grave but thousands more died during His life and they remain dead today.

Now, this problem of God supposedly being unfair bothers many Christians today and it can be disturbing. But the problem is not 'is God fair?'
We tend to confuse God with life.
Life is not fair, but God is fair; this tension in the world sometimes causes doubt because we cannot fully grasp it in our minds.
For example, Jesus said of John the Baptist, 'of woman, no greater man has been born.' Yet, in a jail cell and in the process of losing his head, John the Baptist voiced doubt - 'Should we look for another?'
Was life unfair to John? Yes.
Was God unfair to John? No.
For in the life and death of John the Baptist, Jesus was glorified; and this is the ultimate end to our lives as Christians - to glorify God through His Holy Son.

If we were to accept Jesus for who He is and not who we want Him to be for us personally, a lot of things would instantly change.
Jesus prayed about our faith, forgiveness and about our ability to resist the devil in the world. 
The physical world wants answers to end poverty, sicknesses and oppression.

In His time, Jesus failed to measure up to what the world thought a King should be.
As sad as it is to say, nothing has changed today.
Today, people want to focus on health and prosperity; instead the real, persistent problems for the Church are problems of pride, hypocrisy and legalism.

The reason Jesus prayed about faith, forgiveness and resisting evil is because these things in our walk with the Lord are the very attributes which overcome the world and glorifies Him through our lives.
Don't lose heart in times of struggle - allow Him to make you into a mighty weapon in the Lord's Army.

Until next time, go win one for the Good Guys.