Christ Down Here On Earth

As Jesus taught, we pray, our hearts toward heaven.  Yet, in our proverbial search for God, we more often than not look externally toward a God of omnificence, a non-descript God of the universe.

In the wake of our Lord’s departure here on earth Jesus provided us a two-fold promise.  The first promise is that of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter that he would send to us.  The Second promise is that: “Lo, I am with you even to the ends of the earth.”

The baffling aspect of this is since this is true, why then are we as Christians at a loss as to the presence of our Lord in our day to day lives?

Christ came primarily to establish His church for His father.  Christians are his church and since Paul stated that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, then shouldn’t we look to our brother when we look for Christ?

The testament then is that Christ is alive. I say that he is and that he is alive in you and in me.

Jesus said that “When you have done this to the least of me, we have done it unto him.” As noted by the words of Jesus, our mission then, other than proclaiming the message of the gospel is a mission of service to others.

Often misquoted, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche said that God was dead.  He said this because he believed fervently that man had killed the spirit of god in their hearts. No, he didn’t believe man had killed god literally, but his point was clear whereas he focused on the immorality of man.

As agents of God’s church, we as Christians are to be representatives of Christ. By his spirit that is to dwell in us, we are Christ as he appears to the rest of the world.  As strange as this is, we of course, can ask how this is to be performed.

Here the dictates are clear:  we are to live by FAITH

The literal Truth is Christ Himself and we are his messengers hinged by virtue of Faith. Our love is to be expressed to others vis-à-vis, love, forgiveness, hope, patience, kindness, tranquility, service, and other characteristics that are typical of God as reveal through Jesus.

This mean we should expose ourselves for who and what we are.  We are naturally human and limited, very unlike Christ and His Father. Whereas where we are not useless, it does mean that most of the time, our words are empty.

And if you don’t believe your words are empty, simply go to the near hospital and speak with the suffering, the dying and talk to them.  Yes, it is true you can provide words of comfort, the comfort comes about not in particular from your words, but from your very presence.

In this demonstration of love, you arrive and live in the image of Christ.  Without the presence of the Christian, there is nothing:  and it might even be a form of Death, very much as Nietzsche spoke of it.

By your presence, you bring God through His Son, the Christ here on earth in the flesh.

This is no small feat.  No, not at all.

This performance to appear is important.  In fact, I can think of nothing greater for a man to perform other than this duty.  The task to reveal the Son of Man is the single most important event, ever.  And for all, this experience denotes the difference between eternal life or death. In fact, the mission is so important, God sent His only begotten Son.

For those remaining on this planet it makes the difference if Christ is brought down here on earth.

 

 

 

 

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Jesus, Beyond Words

Aside from reading scripture and the several times when Jesus in fact, quoted scripture, the primary aspect about Him was he was beyond words, in fact, beyond the spoken scripture and in turn,  all his actions became recorded, de facto  scripture in the flesh, in the living.

This is all so very powerful.  Because of who He was, what He did, Jesus then became a walking, living scripture: what in turn, we say is His Word, the beginning.

In like manner, as Christians who are to follow Him, the difference between words and truth is in the performance, in the doing, the action.

The power then, is no so much as what was, but in what is.  For mere mortals is that which separates truth from a lie.

In other words, either it is, or it is not.  There is no in between.

When Christ dwelt on the face of this earth his entire legacy was in demonstrating the character of His Father:  our heavenly. Father .This demonstration was performed daily with declarative acts of forgiveness, love, healing and at other times, knowledge.

Most powerful was the fact that he came in the living:  he was here in the flesh, and had his words equal his deeds.  No separation there.

It is this testament that ascribes to the fact that God is a God of the living.  Through His son’s actions we see an example how to perform.  There is no question that it is impossible to copy exactly what Christ did while he was here with us, but it is clear he provided a beacon for us to follow.

The institutive character of Christ was alive, real, vibrant, and truthful and spoke for itself in the goodness that was given so freely to those around him.

It becomes necessary then not for us to merely read what He did, but to do what he told us to do which is to love one another as he loved us.

In the end, we have scriptures to prop us up when we are ignorant.  On the other hand, we have Christ as the living example that explains and fulfills with its truth. The living example as I this case is Christ Himself as provided by our obedience to His glorious name. Our actions should be a testimony of nothing more than a living scripture as it is dedicated to God’s son, His Christ.

 

 

Sermon Of The Mouth

More often than not, all those good words that flow out of the mouths of Christians are nothing more than words. All of the LOVE we say we possess for other people are really mostly words.  Sure, at the moment, we mean it, probably and we have feelings we express, but when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount, there is nothing in comparison.

Jesus, on His Sermon on the Mount, expressed over and over again all of the human impossibilities of love.  In this sermon, he illustrated the fragilities of people and the exact perfected character of God.

To obey Jesus’s words is impossible for people and more than possible for God. Sorry, folks, but we as people are limited.

Insomuch that God in Heaven is perfect, we are told in real terms to strive for that perfection. No, we are never going to make that mark, but we are to aim for it.

And we are to perform this in more than mere words.

As much as some of us would like to think we are motivated towards good, in most cases we are concerned with self-interest.  The simple truth is that we just don’t love our fellow man as much as we say we do.

In honesty, we are going to save, to give to our kids, pay our bills, seek the law when harmed and more or less take care of ourselves.

No, that doesn’t make us bad people, but when we proclaim our goodness, we should probably remain silent.

Rather than proclaim all the love we don’t have, we should boldly announce the endless love that God has and how it was revealed through His son, the Christ.

My experience has been that people react, respond to honesty.  And to that effect as good witnesses, we should be truthful in what we say.  Of course, we are required to give an account of ourselves, but more importantly is what we say about our Lord, and His Good News.

Thus, if we are to fight with nothing more than our words, then those words should not be about us, but about the Goodness of God. God is far greater than words and when we point in His direction we get beyond our sermons that are weak, our sermons of our mouth.