Getting to Know Jesus: What Would You Have Noticed About Him in the Gospels?
We all know the stories of Jesus, but do we truly know Him? This post explores how the Bible reveals the real Jesus—beyond assumptions and cultural images.
A Glimpse of Jesus: Making Him Known Through Our Actions
Can others see Jesus in your life? Words matter, but love in action speaks louder. Here’s how to reflect Him today.
Walk By Faith Not By Sight
Faith compels you to act in ways that you never would have expected like building a boat to save yourself from a flood when it has never even rained, or fighting a giant that everyone is too scared to fight, or believing a promise that in the natural, just doesn’t make sense.
Everyone is Called to Pray
Everyone is called to regular prayer but not everyone prays regularly. Prayer is just an afterthought for many – hidden away until some test or trial forces us to bring it out of hiding and dust it off. What we fail to realize is that without prayer, we will not walk in the complete victory God has made available to us. According to the Gospel Coalition: The Bible mentions prayer 650 times The Bible records God’s answer to prayer 450 times The Bible shows us 25 instances of Jesus praying during His earthly ministry The Bible records Paul discussing prayer 41 times The Bible is our instruction manual for living. Like with any instruction manual, we shouldn’t ignore, or skip-over instructions that the “instructor” considers important enough to repeat. Let’s say you’re assembling a desk but choose to ignore the repeated instruction to check that the pieces face the right direction; you shouldn’t be surprised when the desk drawers won’t open and close correctly (OK, there may be a desk in my house like this…). How is not following the instructions of the Bible any different? If the Bible repeatedly instructs us to pray and we ignore these instructions, we shouldn’t be surprised when our lives just don’t work the way they should. If the number of times the Bible talks about prayer doesn’t convince us of the importance of prayer, then maybe this will: the Son of God and the man who wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament prayed and repeatedly instruct us to pray. Jesus “went up on the mountain by Himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23), “…spent the whole night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12), “in the early morning…got up… went away to a secluded place and was praying there” (Mark 1:35),”and fell on His face and prayed” (Matthew 26:39). Paul tells us to “pray continually” (1st Thess. 5:16), “devote [our]selves to prayer” (Colossians 4:2), “be…faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12), and “…in everything, by prayer and petition…present [o]ur requests to God” (Philippians 4:6-7). We are to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1), and Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Jesus prayed often. We, as imitators of Christ, should also pray. We should “armor up” with the Word!
Three Reasons Why You Should Pray
Everyone is called to pray, but not everyone prays. Some don’t pray because they believe that God doesn’t care about the smaller details of their lives. Others don’t pray because they believe that God doesn’t hear their prayers, and even if He did, He wouldn’t move on their behalf. All of these are good reasons not to pray, if they were true, but they aren’t. They are lies; lies which can easily be exposed by looking at the truth of the Word. God cares about every detail of our lives, no matter how big or small God cares so much about us that He knows the number of hairs we have on our head (Luke 12:7). When Jesus walked this earth, He didn’t just “show up” when it was a matter of life and death, but He also “showed up” when it wasn’t. Jesus cared enough about the details of a wedding that when the wine ran out, He made more (John 2:1-10). He cared enough about a crowd missing lunch that He multiplied a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to feed 5,000. God cared enough for me that when I asked Him to help me find a lost cell phone, He showed me where to find it. If it matters to us, it matters to God; we can pray about everything and anything, and we should. God Hears Our Prayers How do we know that God hears our prayers? His Word says that He does. Psalms 34:15 reminds us that “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.” In Jeremiah 29:12, God tells us that when we pray, He will listen. In Jeremiah 33:3, God tells us to call to Him and He will answer us and tell us great and unsearchable things. 1 John 5:14-15 urges us to confidently come to God in prayer because when we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. If it were true that God doesn’t hear our prayers, why would He spend so much time encouraging us to pray? God moves on this earth in response to believers’ prayers Sometimes when we pray, it seems God is not moving, but in reality, things are happening in the spiritual realm that we cannot see. Daniel fasted and prayed for 21 days, waiting for God to move. For 21 days, he cried out to God, but there was only silence. Finally, an angel appeared to Daniel and said to him, “from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them..…” (Daniel 10:12). Daniel had no idea that from the moment he uttered the first word of his prayer, God began to move in the spiritual realm towards the answer. God heard Him. Sometimes we must wait longer than we want for the answer, and sometimes we don’t receive the answer we want at all. Instead of letting doubt take hold, we must trust that God is moving on our behalf and that He always has our best interests at heart. You are called to pray. You are called to communicate with your lifeline, with your one true path to peace, your heavenly Father. God cares about you and every detail of your life, no matter how big or small. God hears your prayers. He wants you to talk to Him. He wants a relationship with you. Don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope. Sometimes it seems God is not moving on your behalf, but the truth is, you can’t always see Him moving; you can’t always see what He is setting in motion. Even in those times of silence, you can be assured that God is working things out with your best interests at heart; that He is working to give you hope and a future!
The Beatitudes: Welcome to the Upside Down
What is True Happiness? What is true happiness? Philosophers, scholars, and psychologists have pondered this question throughout the years and have offered us definition after definition. However, because they base their ideas of happiness on human wisdom, they only provide a fleeting type of happiness: happiness that relies on self-gratification and external factors instead of internal peace. Jesus, on the other hand, shows us a way to true, lasting happiness in a series of short teachings called the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are part of the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon given by Jesus and documented by Matthew in Matthew 5 through 7. The Sermon on the Mount is the most extended discourse by Jesus recorded in the Bible and is probably the most famous Sermon ever. Understanding this Sermon is foundational to understanding Jesus’ other teachings. Jesus Turned the World Upside Down As Jesus often did, He turned the world upside down with the Beatitudes. According to Jesus, to find true happiness, we must forget what the world tells us about the pursuit of happiness and instead look to Him. Jesus tells us that He came to give us a “rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10, NLT). Not only does Jesus give us the keys to true happiness, but He also presents a spiritual blueprint of the Kingdom of Heaven itself. Jesus opened His Sermon with this truth: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3 NIV). Jesus taught with order and purpose. He presents this Beatitude first because we can’t spiritually discern the remaining eight without making sense of it. To grasp the meaning of this Beatitude, let’s take a closer look at three keywords: “blessed,” “poor in spirit,” and “kingdom of heaven.” Blessed We toss around the word “blessed” a lot these days, Christians and non-Christians alike. When someone asks how we are doing, we might respond, “I am blessed”; when someone speaks of something good that happened in their life, they might say, “I was blessed.” In fact, over the past couple of years, the hashtag #blessed has been trending to a point where media outlets have published articles on the overuse of #blessed. In all this blessedness, the real meaning of blessed gets lost. Jesus also used the word “blessed” a lot. In fact, His first recorded Sermon began with the word “Blessed” and each of the Beatitudes that follow begins with the words “Blessed are”. Blessed is the Greek word makarios, which means happy. As we will see, the world’s idea of what it means to be “blessed” or “happy” is very different from the true meaning of happiness presented by Jesus in His teachings. Poor in Spirit The word “poor” in the American culture is viewed negatively and is associated with those who want for money, food, clothing, or housing. Our culture either feels sorry for the poor or looks down upon them as useless and worthless. Indeed, no one in the American culture aspires to be “poor,” and to my knowledge #poor has not trended on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. The meaning of poor in Greek is no different than how we define poor. In Greek, it means a beggar, a person of few resources, a person who is culturally considered oppressed, despised, and miserable. Notice that Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the poor”, but He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Being “poor in spirit” does not mean that a person lacks in spirit, but that they lack in self-reliance and self-assurance. Those who are poor in spirit look outside of themselves for their provision. Being “poor in spirit” has nothing to do with lacking financial resources but has everything to do with lacking in self. What is the Kingdom of Heaven? Another important concept we need to grasp to understand the teachings of Jesus better is the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the Gospels, Jesus spends a lot of time talking about it. He says that this Kingdom is not of this world, it can’t be observed by visible signs, and it is already among us (John 18:36, Luke 17:20-21). What exactly does Jesus mean by the Kingdom of Heaven? A kingdom is defined as a rule or realm, a dominion of a king. Kings exert their rule over their subjects, and their subjects submit to their king’s authority. Kingdom rule is what Americans revolted against in 1776. Kingdom rule is in direct contradiction to most Americans’ innate sense of self-rule and independence. Yet, Jesus is telling us to seek the Kingdom of Heaven first, above all else (Matthew 6:33). With the birth of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven was brought to earth, and Jesus was crowned the King. Upon Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, the Kingdom’s realm resides in the hearts of those who submit to the rule of Jesus, His followers. Spiritual Bankruptcy To enter the Kingdom of Heaven and receive its blessings, we must be poor in spirit. God “opposes the proud” (James 4:6), but “lives in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble” (Isaiah 57:15 NLT). The story of Jacob’s wrestling match with God found in Genesis 32: 22-32 demonstrates the spiritual principle of the first Beatitude. After fleeing his father-in-law Laban, Jacob wanted to return home but first would have to face his brother Esau, whom he had betrayed years before. Fearing Esau might retaliate for Jacob’s past betrayal, Jacob, on his own, devised a plan. Only when he realized that his plan might fail and there was nothing he could do in his own power to save himself did he turn to God in prayer. Wrestling With God One night, in response to Jacob’s prayer, God appeared to Jacob and wrestled with him until daybreak. When God saw that Jacob would not give up, He touched Jacob’s hip and lamed him. It was then that Jacob realized that he was