What Would Jesus Do If He Came As You?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we explore a variation on the WWJD challenge. It is about the Incarnation. It is about your natal star. It is a challenge too few think about for fear of falling short of the expectation. Still we ask believing that in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. So, What Would Jesus Do If He Came As You?
Scripture: The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
John 1:9-14 (NRSV)
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14 (NRSV)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
Colossians 1:15 (NRSV)
Message: I have said before and I say it again here. There is something incarnational about being in a place you are not expected to be….in being kind and loving to those in need that are not waiting for you to act. When there is no expectation it is easier to exceed it. Embodied in these acts of love is the truth of Christ’s incarnation, His suffering, His substitution for our sins and His invitation to join Him in the flesh of a new body. This is the truth that will make us free. This is the invitation to experience Him and His mighty acts in our lives. Sure the work of the cross is done but the work to be done has only begun. You see if God, just a part of God, comes into this world through us then maybe something spectacular might just continue to happen. I am writing about the demonstrated growth that happens when we are God’s agent in the world. This faith growth is beyond the oscillations between fear and love so typical of engaging the least, last and lost, though that is part of what is happening. It is being the sent people of God carrying the light and life of Jesus as an organizing principle of community discovering that people love this Jesus made manifest. It is being the Body of Christ together patterned after the incarnation reality of God sending His Son held together in love. The movement is not from outside to inside but from inside to outside until the edges and boundaries are no longer discernable. It is not a model of attraction and assimilation, but rather a way of work that speaks to the role of disciples as agents of the kingdom of God permeating like salt into a non-Christian culture, bringing their light into the world. You see Jesus is building His kingdom for this purpose of going out not just reaching out. The metrics is not about filling the pews but filling the hearts of others on a journey to the center and personality of a community viewed from the bird’s eye perspective with a listening ear. To serve God is to glorify God. And this is the goal of salvation. God wants to do something more with us than simply get us to heaven. His goal of salvation is for us to live for his glory, but to do this first we have to be liberated from the selfishness of our sin. Then by the grace of sanctification prepared to serve in an expression of Christ in us.
Pray we realize that
God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings but became one of us so that we might become more like the divine.
Pray we learn to share in the incarnational life…of the Word made flesh… of God’s body broken for us as a gift. Pray that after we have read today’s passages, we picture ourselves in the art of sharing in the incarnation of God’s beauty at the crossroads of God’s eternal human heart in the person of Jesus. Pray a theology of Christmas lives on in the child in each of us that is beyond a season and time. Pray that Jesus, God incarnate, fully divine and fully human would give us the best directions in life we will ever receive. Pray we acknowledge that Jesus is the way, the truth and the light for our journey. Pray we receive Him and His directions, on our journey to our destination in eternity. Pray God is born in us.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 