Jesus is a place that very few of us have ever been too. He is a place that many of us would like to visit and maybe settle in some day. A good size of humanity struggle to even reach such a place called Jesus.
To some of us, our set of ideals is our Jesus. For as long as others respect our ideals and that we’re able to achieve them, “Thank you, Jesus!”
We often cry, “Jesus!”, in total disbeliefs of what we’re either hearing or seeing, and maybe feeling.
What is our Jesus?
What is our place of rest? What is our peace of mind? What is our measure of value?
When Jesus the person is viewed as a philosophy to live by, a sizable understanding, many easily relate. Yet, when that philosophy is threatened by illnesses, injustices, hard times, it’s usually set aside to make room for our venture into other philosophies, other possibilities, other understandings, other beliefs.
I can only imagine Jesus to the extent of what a human being can conceive in his natural mind. Yet, Jesus is far more than what our mind can naturally understand.
Jesus is right in front of us every single day. Yet, we do not see him. He speaks in our ears by the seconds. Still, we hear him not. Instead, what we hear are our worries. What we see mostly are everything that has failed our expectations.
How do you get out of it? How do you get out of the mode of noticing everything that’s wrong when the right things are right in front of us? And by whose measure do we assess those right things?
Death seems wrong. Yet, God many times use the passing of the most appreciated among us to gather us together and celebrate the presence of each other as we’re thanking God for the presence of the cherished in each one of us even when they’re absent from the body, present with the Lord.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8)
In this lifetime, we’re mostly human, highly influenced by our senses. It is only when the human has been set aside due to exhaustion, do we seek and acknowledge the Jesus that God has sent to us, the Jesus who has always been right there in front of us, the Jesus who never leaves us alone.
When the Samaritan woman found out that Jesus the Messiah was right in front of her, it was too much for her to bear.
Jesus the Messiah.
Can you imagine the voice of Peter as he uttered those words:
““We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.” (Acts 10:39-44)
The Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. Without the Holy Spirit, there’s no way we can retain the message, understand the message and realize that the message is Christ himself in all fullness. The message wasn’t simply that someone has finally pleased God to the fullness. The core of the message was that we’ve been forgiven by God of all sins as the sacrifice of such man, Christ Jesus, has served us record.
On that message, not a philosophy, not just a way of living, not just a set of human ideals, but life, a new life, a nonperishable life, the life of God is shared with us in all fullness through the living hope that Christ Jesus serves to our hearts abundantly. Such hope in our heart surpasses the fear that death can ever bring to anyone’s mind.
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 