With Jesus

THIS WEEK has been very interesting, and I've noticed some interesting things. Check this out: Do you know how often we read or hear or sing the name 'Jesus' ? Wherever we are, we think about Him alot, don't we? And we hear His name alot in Scripture. There is a song that's actually dancing around in my head right now - it goes "No sweeter name than the name of Jesus, no sweeter name have I ever known!" And it's very true, isn't it? In calling on His name we are saved. That's awesome. But we need to be careful that we don't forget what His name means, and who He is. Under our breath in prayer and at the top of our lungs in song, between the pages of our Bibles, we say His name over and over. Then I realize: Jesus walked this earth! He has a body, and He breathed and He moved and He was physically tangible. He is a real person. I hope that we don't lose sight of His face and His presence, but rather that we each feel Him present wherever we go.
I was reading in "The Applause of Heaven" by Max Lucado, and I read a story about an old, sick man who had a habit of pulling up an empty chair and actually making conversation with Jesus. This man explained this practice to a pastor who came to visit him. A few days later he died, and his daughter told the pastor that he had died with his head not on his pillow, but resting comfortably on a chair beside his bed.
This story is important to me. I can relate to it in a way: sometimes when I'm nervous or uncomfortable I ask Jesus to come sit in all the empty chairs of the building, or just one right beside me. That not quite the same as just making conversation, but it makes me feel better because I know He is actually there, because He is everywhere, and He's in me, too. When I had read this story I pulled the chair out from in front of my computer and I talked to Jesus, a really real talk to Him. I couldn't see Him, but I felt He was there. He said He'd be with us always, and everything He ever said was true has proven to be true. He is a real person, with real flesh and bones and real blood that was spilled and a real heart full of pure love. He is God. We look at Him through the words in the Bible, seeing him heal sick people. We see how He never took orders (for He gives the orders) and how He is perfectly willing to help anybody who asks Him believing that He can and will heal them, knowing that nobody deserves His help. He talked and thought and acted like God does, and nobody could ever trap Him in His words, for they are perfect wisdom. His parables and miracles had meanings, meant to help us understand and not to just make us gasp and wonder how He can do these things. Any magician can make us gasp, and any sage can say wise things, and any doctor can help heal people. But nobody else ever lived who worked like Jesus Christ.
Doctors don't touch paralytics and make them jump up and walk around. Magicians don't elucidate the mysteries of heaven and earth by making cards and coins disappear. Sages may be wise in a few things, but they do not always come right to the people and convict people with the truth about themselves, and they don't always make sense like Jesus does. Only God works this way. That's who Jesus is. More than a name, more than a story or a prayer or a dream, more than an uplifted stained glass face or a painting under beams of holy light. He is God, a great God, the only God, who came to us and wants us, and wants us to want Him! That's who Jesus is. In all the books and all the catalogues of gods and ideas about God and concepts of how to get close to God, there is no other way laid out so beautifully as this one. There is no other way that really leads to God. There is nothing else, nothing more. It is simple and beautiful: God Himself loves us so much that He came to earth in he form of a sinless Man to suffer and die in our place, promising that whoever believes in who He is will have their sins transferred to Him, for He died to wipe them away. None of the Hindu gods will do more than look at you from inside their picture frames. No other god wants to be with us. No elemental earth gods redeem the soul. No other god made it so that we could be reunited with Him and not have to try to be good enough ourselves, which we have never been able to be. No other God exists!
It's good to get on our knees and pray often. I just hope that when I do that I never forget who it is I'm praying to. It is not prayer to deliver a list of names and causes and say thanks for the same list of things, say amen, and be done. We can't ust say "Lord, Lord" over and over and never pray from our hearts. It is prayer to kneel with the heart and lift thanks, to sincerely ask for guidance and help for ourselves and all the people around us, and to realize that when we pray, God is sitting there hearing us! Isn't that something? God hears our prayers, no matter what the volume, no matter what language, because He can hear it all at once and do it all at once, and it's never too much for Him. He never asks us to speak up so He can hear us, and He doesn't require us to learn a special way to talk to Him. He knows it all already, anyway. But He wants us to want to talk to Him. And when we do, He is absolutely listening. Sometimes His response is "Yes," sometimes it's "No," and sometimes it's "Wait and See," and sometimes it's "Oh, I have something so much better for you than that!" If He Himself is willing to listen to us, then we need to be willing to listen to Him too.
On Saturday I had Life Group with Jenny White, and none of the other members of the group came. So I had her all to myself, and we had fun. We walked from Five Guys over to Kilwin's at the Town Center and got ice cream, and then we started our discussion of chapter 6 of "The Purple Book" : Discipleship and Leadership. It was really cool, because we'd actually started talking about it last week with several other girls in the group and we only got through one lesson. I had really wanted to go over this chapter with Jenny, so I feel blessed to have had the chance to talk to her one on one about it before going on to the next chapter.
We discussed what is means to "take up your cross daily." She explained that it relates to what Jesus had to do with His cross: He did what He knew He needed to do for God's glory, though every muscle told Him not to. It was scary. In addition to suffering, He was also victorious. Gloriously victorious. This is the way it is with taking up my cross: it is to lay aside what I want for the sake of what I know is right. It is not going out of my way to do needlessly difficult tasks that won't accomplish anything. It is going out of my way to to difficult things that have a purpose, to honor God. And doing that, I know I'll be victorious because He will bless my efforts. But it's pretty scary, right? Often I can't figure out just what I personally need to be doing. I wonder what it is that I need to go do to follow Jesus.
And then I realize that it's not just one thing I do, it's the way I live and all the things I do while I'm living. It's not 'Today I'm going to do this.' That leaves room for any little thing to distract me and keep me from doing it. It's 'I'm always going to be this.' To 'be' something is more effective and more long-term than to 'do' something. 'Being' something involves all that I do. It's a lifestyle and the focus of my heart and mind. It's much easier to actually 'do' what is necessary when I choose to 'be' the Christian servant that 'does' what I need to. Whatever it is: to show love, to share a verse, to pick up somebody's pencil, to talk to a friend or a stranger, to go across the world to reach somebody. I don't need to know right now what all my tasks will be, but I need to be a servant of God if I'm going to hope I'll actually do anything. So the Spirit will reveal what needs to be going on, all according to God's perfect timing. He will show me what my flaws are and help me to grow, as He does with all Christians throughout our entire lives. It is a lifelong journey, with Jesus. And then we get to stay forever with Jesus!
Thank you for reading. God bless. Please share your comments, prayer requests, and anything that God is amazing you with this week.