MEET AND FOLLOW JESUS
THE INVITATION
Meet Jesus and Follow Him - The Invitation
Everything in the life of a Christian is begun by God. It is he who takes the initiative. It is he who enables a person to respond. Faith is a gift from God and God gives this gift to everyone, including you who are reading these words; all you have to do is accept it.
God has chosen you. He wants to establish a relationship with you. You have perhaps not chosen him yet. As in every love encounter love must be reciprocated before you can feel its transforming power in your life. We have seen a few verses in which Christ calls people to come to him and follow him, verses such as: "Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11: 28). At other times he reproaches those who do not follow him: "and yet you refuse to come to me to receive life!" (John 5: 40).
The question ‘how can I come to the risen Lord, how can I meet him?’ is not difficult to answer. In fact it is he who is seeking you. "When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Let us not forget the fundamental truth of the resurrection highlighted in the last session: Jesus died and has risen and now very much alive guiding those who come to him, accept him and follow him. Let him guide you, too.
Jesus has risen from the dead not only in some vague, spiritual sense. He is not simply present as a much loved deceased person is present in the heart or mind of an individual. He is alive, and is very much present. If you had lived in the time of Jesus you would have heard people speak of him, you would have received information about his life and about what he has done. Perhaps some would have known his friends who would have told them how much he had influenced their lives. These contacts and this information would have made you to want to know more. You would have gone to look for him to see him with your own eyes, you would have heard his teaching and you would have been in the company of other like-minded people. You would have experienced the friendship of a group of people who have had a close relationship with him and that show the joy of being in his company.
Today you can do the same. You have already received some vital information about Christ, you have probably already met people who have been influenced by him. You have been encouraged to learn more because you are continuing on this journey together with us. You can come into contact with his teaching by dedicating a few minutes a day reading the Word of God that speaks of him. You can also join others who are also making this journey and already walking with him side by side.
Discovering a New Relationship - The Encounter with Christ
Having set the foundation in the previous sessions, we can now begin to explore the faith in greater depth and consider some implications and practicalities involved in our search. Jesus said “I and the Father are one” and “no one comes to the Father except through me”. Our search for Jesus is our search for God; Jesus is the way to the Father. Jesus is the human face of God. The search for God the Father and the encounter with him goes through Jesus Christ. Our journey towards becoming a Christian is a journey that takes us into a whole network of new relationships.
In the Old Testament or Old Covenant, God is seen as someone outside of us, beyond us, transcendent. Nevertheless, God has a very personal relationship with his people, caring for them, guiding them, protecting them, and educating them. He is the God who stoops down to his people in order to raise them up.
The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. (Psalm 113:4-8)
Though outside and beyond creation, God is intimately involved in the affairs of man, his most prized creation. The ultimate stooping down of God lies in the coming of Christ when God puts on our humanity, to raise us up. Jesus Christ, the bearer of the New Covenant of the Spirit, the new relationship foretold by the prophet Ezekiel, “I will put my Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:27), raises us up to the dignity of becoming the dwelling place of his Holy Spirit so that we may be guided in every phase of our discipleship.
With the New Covenant of the Spirit there is a new relationship with God, a relationship of profound intimacy and union. The very person of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, brings together God and man. God puts on our humanity so that we may put on his divinity; we are called to be transformed into his likeness.
The search for God becomes the search for Christ in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him” (Colossians 2:9). No one can come to the Father except through Christ because “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Our relationship with God changes radically in, with and through Christ. God is no longer simply outside but within the Christian. In and with Christ we have been raised up to the Father, “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
In the New Testament there are multiple references to this profound intimacy between Jesus and his followers, here are but a few:
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us (John 17:21)
I in them and you in me (John 17:23)
that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26)
If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (John 14:23)
do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
Our relationship with the Father is no longer mediated by the Law or by the sacrifice of animals as in the Old Covenant, but by Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).
Examples of the divine indwelling can be multiplied. The whole of the Christian life derives its driving force from this spiritual reality. This is what distinguishes the Christian faith from all others. This is why all religions are not the same, nor are they equal.
The leader of the early church, Peter, could write
“he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature”(2 Peter 1:4).
There is intimate union between the risen Lord and his followers, so much so that the church is the ‘body of Christ’. The Christian faith is all about relationships, not primarily a set of doctrines, rites and rituals but about knowing the one in whom we believe: “I know the one in whom I have placed my trust” (2 Timothy 1:12).
Jesus said in this world we will have trouble. There is suffering, brokenness, hurt, and pain. Yet Jesus says, “be of good cheer” (John 16:33) because he has overcome the world. Scripture says we have an enemy (not one of flesh and blood). We have an enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But we are told not to worry because greater is he who is in us (Jesus) than he who is in the world. The indwelling Christ is the source of victory over everything negative in our lives, temptation, suffering, death. It is important not to block this source of strength and wisdom, to keep the channel open and uncontaminated so he can work in and through us in moments of need.
Whether we seek God in his transcendence, from outside, or whether we seek him in his immanence, from within, whether we reach out or reach down to him, what is important is to seek him with all our heart. The first commandment is to love God with all our heart. If we start seeking him with all our heart we are on the right track and we have a guarantee that we shall find him
you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29)
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)
When we find him there will be a stirring, a confirmation, an assurance at the level of our human spirit that we belong to him, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God ” (Romans 8:16). We need this assurance in the inner stillness of our spirit as we journey forwards towards the fullness of the Kingdom. To become aware of this interaction between The Holy Spirit of God and our human spirit we need to be surrounded by silence, outer and inner “ Be still, and know that I am God ” (Psalm 46:10)
This union with the Father through Christ changes the direction of our lives. We travel towards the God within, towards the Kingdom within and in so doing we discover our true dignity, our true origins, our true selves.
There is yet another dimension of our relationship with Christ, the Christ among us. When Jesus Christ was asked about the Kingdom he said
The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. (Luke 17:20, 21)
Jesus Christ was in their midst. Where the king is and where the king rules, there is the kingdom. The King and the Kingdom are in our midst. Jesus Christ, God and man, he in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells is among us leading us to the third dimension of our search for God. "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (Matthew 18:20) We search for and find God among other Christians. The body of Christ, the church, is the visible sign of this sacred union that binds all Christians together.
Our journey towards our final destination, the Kingdom is threefold, we are journeying towards the Kingdom beyond, supported by the journey towards the Kingdom within and
by the Kingdom among us.
This vital union constitutes the driving force of the whole of our spiritual journey. Everything depends on entering into this union, feeding it, cultivating it and allowing it to guide us and prepare us for the fullness of the Kingdom after death. This is done through the power of the Holy Spirit "all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God " (Romans 8:14)
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Next: Discipleship Part 2 Union with Christ in Baptism
Introduction to the Christian Faith - Index
© R W
bsgbiblestudyguide@gmail.com
