Which Jesus Do You Believe In?

WHICH JESUS DO YOU BELIEVE IN?

I wonder how God feels about the various versions of His Son that are out there in the marketplace of religion. I don’t know about you but if someone was out there representing my son in a way that was foreign to who and what He really is I would be very upset about it.  Many who call themselves by the name ‘Christian’ seem to have different versions of who Jesus is and what He represents. For some he is the nice shepherd who goes around making sure everyone is happy and making sure noone says anything or does anything that would offend anyone else; He was a kind man who was misunderstood by those around him and eventually he died on a cross because evil men didn’t like the fact that he was becoming too popular. For others Jesus is the broken hearted savior who looks down upon mankind and pines over their problems and troubles wishing they could just love each other more. Some may even see Jesus as the ultimate peacenick who just wants everyone to get along and if he were here today he would probably play an electric guitar and have a band and sing about peace, love and black light posters.

A popular picture of Jesus today is one that makes him out to be a big cash register in the sky who just wants to give us everything we want so we can have wonderful lives filled with the riches and treasures of this world while we wait for our chariot to take us to eternal splendour. Then there’s the other crowd who think Jesus is looking down from heaven eager to judge every wrong word, deed or thought to make sure that one doesn’t slip in to heaven by mistake when he or she should really go to hell. To them the Ten Commandments is a playbook for kids. They are convinced that God is mad as hell and He’s going to make everyone pay for what they’ve done. To them you can live your whole life in fear of Divine retribution and one day you step off the curb into the path of an oncoming vehicle and if you say “damn” before you die it’s straight to the flames for you.

Of course there are also those who think he was a prophet or another one of many spiritual leaders who have come along throughout history so everyone can pick and choose what version of God they want to believe in. In India he was Buddha or Krishna; in Greece He was Dyonesus or some other of the pantheon of god’s available to choose from and sacrifice to. In Islamic states he’s just a forerunner to the real deal Mohamed; in Ethiopia or Jamaica he’s come to us as Haille Selassie ‘The Lion’.

While it’s true that Jesus demonstrated many of the characteristics mentioned above, in truth He far exceeds anything that could be comprehended by the mind of man. To find out what Jesus was like the and is now we need only to go to the Bible, which contains not only a description of the character of God’s Son, but is in fact His essence in written form: He is The Word of God! Here are just a few of Jesus’ titles and descriptions of Him given to us in the Holy Scriptures.

Who Jesus is:

Jesus is the Creator of all things (John 1:1-3; COlossians 1:16 )
Jesus is Light of the World (John 8:12)
Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15)
Jesus is the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14-18)
The only way to Heaven (John 10:9; John 14:6)
Jesus is the only Savior of the world (Acts 4:12; 1 Jn. 4:14; 2 Pet. 2:20)
Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Juda (Rev. 5:5)
Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev 17:14; Rev 19:16)
Jesus is the King of Saints (Rev. 15:3)
Jesus is the Bright and Morning Star (Rev.22:16)
Jesus is above all things (Phil 2:9-10)
Jesus is The Lamb of God (John 1:29 and 36; Rev. 5:6, 7:7, 14:10)
He is the giver of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22)

What Jesus did for us:

Jesus left His heavenly glory and became a vulnerable human being (Isaiah 9:6; Luke 2:11; Rom. 8:3; Philippians 2:6-7)
Jesus lived a perfect life without sin (John 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:22)
Jesus was despised and rejected of men (Isa.53:3;Ps. 22:6,7; Jer.8:9; Matt. 27:39-43)
Jesus paid the penalty for our sins (Isa. 53:4-6; Zech. 13:6; Gal.1:4; 1 Jn. 2:2; John 19:30)
Jesus became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 4:1)
Jesus gave his life for us (Matt; 27:50 Luke 23:46; Rev. 13:8)
Jesus made peace with God the Father for us ( Eph. 1:6; Eph. 2:14; Col. 1:20; Heb. 7:25)
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8; Eph. 5:18)
Jesus has made a place for believers in eternity  (John 14:2-3)
Jesus promised us life after death (John 6:40; John 11:25; Rom. 4:24)

Reminding ourselves of Who Jesus really is might help us to order our lives in the way that He instructs us in His Word.  In these troubled times in which we live we might want to take inventory of our beliefs and make sure they line up with what God has revealed to us.