Carl Medearis's Blog, page 4

Jesus and Ileana

Jesus & Ileana.

 

I love these two names so much.

 

One name means ‘Son of God’… and the other ‘God answers’.

 

They’re also more than names to me.  They’re the two most powerful stories in my life.

 

I never knew Jesus, but thankfully a handful of people who did – and loved Jesus like family – wrote many things down about him.

 

I’m so thankful. I feel like I get to know him now because of others’ ink and love shared.

 

And then somehow His story became mine? I don’t really know how or when, but the more I considered Jesus and all that people wrote about him, the more he became real and fully alive to me. And the more I reflected on who he was the more I wanted to actually be more like him and less like myself?

 

But after several years, somewhere in that process the words of those stories about Jesus started to become too familiar. And I heard a lot of other versions of the same stories told from lots of different peoples’ mouths, and they just didn’t sound the same. They sounded religious. So I started wearing Jesus like clothes, and he became more of a moral style for me and less a King, savior, friend, and protector. I started falling back into my own story, and thought well maybe this Jesus isn’t so fully alive, but I am. So I will just focus on becoming the best version of me that I can.

 

And then I met her. Ileana. A little girl from a trash dump in Central America. Like a little white rose growing in a war zone. There was just something so fiery, hopeful and alive in her that I could not get her out of my head or heart. She wrecked and derailed me the way she lived with such courage and love despite the living hell that she called home. I don’t really know how or when, but the more I walked with Ileana the more her story became mine. Her pain was my pain. Her joy was my joy. Her laughter, my laughter.

 

 

 

She often needed food for herself and family, clean water, and sometimes medicine.  And the heartbeat of Jesus grew louder and louder in me each time I was able to serve her. I learned about horrible things that she faced and could feel a righteous Godly anger beginning to burn in my chest. But, whenever she would laugh the peace of Jesus would cover my mind and wash all anxiety away.

 

Ileana’s lightning smile and courage in the face of drug addiction, forced prostitution, and violence awakened something divine in me and called out the stories of Jesus written on my heart. Ileana loved me as purely and unconditionally as I had ever experienced in my life. Through Ileana I was touching the face of God. Through Ileana Jesus was taking hold of my life again from the inside out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then she quietly passed away.

 

So now I have her story to tell.

 

God answers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about Ileana’s story and lightning smile please CLICK HERE.

 Brad Corrigan

 

Jesus and John the Baptist- Conrad Gempf

You’re behind the mirror-glass window. There are only two guys in the line-up. They both look kind of foreign and have beards. They’re both wearing those bathrobe-things. The one on the left, holding a card with the number 1, is taller than number 2.



Which one is Jesus?


The uniform next to you squawks into a microphone, “Number one! Look at the mirror and say: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!’”


Number one kinda plants his sandaled feet, and then, even though you know he can’t see you behind the mirror, he still seems to fix his eyes right on you and points to you and says “Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!”


“Now you, please, number two.”

Same intense look, same feeling he sees you. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he says, then points, “So repent!”

Uniform shoves the gum to the side of his mouth with his tongue and asks, “Anything else you want them to say or do — help you decide?”

You turn to him and say …

[you write the ending of the story in the comments]


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Weak is the New Strong- Michael Hidalgo

Jesus was weak. At least according to the way we often think in terms of strength and weakness. Many believe might makes right. The one who is justified at the end of a debate, argument, or battle is the one who is able to silence his or her opponent by any means necessary.

 

It’s common to see people slandering others with whom they disagree, and never give it a second thought. We make those who think differently than us out to be idiots, and tell ourselves we are right. Hostile rhetoric is considered strong, and widely accepted, implemented and supported by those who self-identify as Christians. Those who take action, dash another to pieces, or “stand-up” for themselves are thought to be strong.

 

A few weeks ago a friend of mine mused about Jesus driving moneychangers out of the temple with whips. He talked about how Jesus “powered up” and “opened up a can.” All his talk made it sound like Jesus was strong. But this may not be the best picture of Jesus.

 

Let’s not forget what happened right before he tossed a few tables in the Temple. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. A donkey was an animal of peace, which was in contrast to a horse that was an animal of war. Kings rode horses. Generals rode horses. War heroes rode horses. Jesus rode a donkey.

 

Luke, in his gospel, wrote that as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he cried. Jesus wept. His sorrow for those who were about to kill him was too much. He longed for their salvation, their peace, and their healing but it was too late. It was with this sorrow-laden heart that Jesus went into the temple. Was he angry? Sure, but his anger came out of a broken heart.

 

When we view Jesus as an angry cuss who “opened a can” against a bunch of crooks we may be seeing something that is not there. There was never an ounce of ego in the anger of Jesus. He operated out of a broken heart filled with love, not a heart filled with violence. What we often mistake as strength in our world is nothing more than violent weakness – that was never in the heart of Jesus, and it is never in the heart of God either.

 

Throughout the Bible we learn of a God who is heart broken over the plight of humans. Which of course raises the questions, “What kind of cosmic deity would ever let his heart be broken by mere mortals?” That sounds weak doesn’t it? In the ancient world deities were fierce, powerful, and didn’t tolerate the whims of mortals. Not this one; God grieved in his heart for humanity.

 

It is this cosmic deity that came and lived among us in the person of Jesus. The one who was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He was punched, mocked, falsely accused, spit on, beaten, and slandered yet never opened his mouth.

 

He was nailed to a Roman instrument of execution and taunted. Those who hated him said, “What’s wrong Jesus? Can’t you get down from that cross?” What they are really saying is, “Aren’t you strong enough?”

 

The answer is, of course, “Yes. He was strong enough.”

 

Strong enough to stay on that damnable stake that was a curse to humanity. Strong enough to look at those who were beating him with a whip and love them. Strong enough to not hit back. Strong enough to not return an insult. Strong enough to say, as he neared death, “Hey Dad, forgive those who are doing this to me because they don’t get what they are doing.”

 

If Jesus had of called an army of angels, crushed the Romans, and defeated those who were corrupt and oppressive he would have simply played the same tired game humanity has played since the dawn of time that says violence, power and might are what wins because that is what is strong.

 

Thankfully, Jesus did not play that game, because he knew that’s nothing but weakness. Jesus took an instrument of violence and power, and suffered on it in total weakness putting on display what true strength is.

 

This is why Paul said on the cross Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2.15). People in Rome would have laughed at the sentence. They would have thought Paul was out of his mind to think any victim of crucifixion “triumphed.”

 

They did not triumph. They died. In the mind of the Romans the cross showed the power the Roman Empire. It was a symbol of their political and military strength. Yet, Jesus bled and died on a cross and he triumphed, and that is the real victory. Because if the cross was the greatest weapon of Rome, and Jesus defeated it, then what power do they have left?

 

What looked like weakness was really strength.

 

And therein lies the upside-down nature of true power in the Kingdom of Heaven. It takes real strength to swallow your ego and not return an insult. It takes deep strength to bless those who persecute you. It takes tremendous power to love your enemies and pray for them. It takes supernatural might to forgive those who have wounded you.

 

May we struggle to come to grips with this mystery that tells us that unless we die we cannot live. This mystery that tells us until we release others in forgiveness we will never be free. This mystery tells us that weak is the new strong.

 

In doing so may we become weak, and may we have the eyes to see that our perception of Jesus is often too weak. May we come to truly contemplate his weakness put on display on the cross, so that we may be awed by his incomparable strength.

 

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It is Time! (A post from Paul Young – author of “The Shack”)

There are many of us who believe that the center and source of all existence is a community of self-giving, other-centered love, where there is no hierarchy of power, no hierarchy of value and no hierarchy of respect. Even if you do not believe as many of us do, that Jesus is the incarnation of this self-giving, other-centered God, completing an intention from the beginning of space, time and matter to fully identify with us, you can still believe in the ‘Spirit’ of Jesus; the humility that embraces our common history as humanity, the openness to walking in the eyes of the ‘other’, the risks of searching together for better ways and understandings, the courage to suspend our judgments and prejudices while attacking the darkness that resides in our own hearts.

God has a dream. Abraham Lincoln has a dream. Gandhi has a dream. Martin Luther King has a dream. I have a dream. We all have, in our heart of hearts, a dream: that together we can forge through relationships a world that is safe for our children, our grandchildren and our neighbor’s children, that we can share in a humanity where the color of our skin is neither indicative of innate superiority nor criminal tendency, that we eradicate any belief in a chain of being and declare together our unity in the circle of being, where the ‘one’ is as important and significant as the ‘many’, that together we will fight the enemy of our humanity that continues to divide us, accuse us and dis-colors our perspectives through greed, fear, technique and ideology.

Evil has no color, but grace is every color, as is forgiveness, repentance, confession, compassion and self-giving, other-centered love. As evil is an incremental process so too will be our healing.

But it is time! Time for the healing. Time to join together in the ‘Spirit’ of Jesus, who refuses to treat the maligned and less-fortunate with anything other than profound dignity, who would never relate to a human being, especially our children, as commodities to be bought or sold, or from whom to extract servitude or pleasure. It is time to admit we don’t understand but are willing to learn, to open our hands rather than clench them, to abandon any hierarchy of value that catalogues our differences as a basis for respect.

It is time to beat our weapons into implements for our common good and not just our own insecure portions of it, for justice to restore and heal and not marginalize and punish, for the powers that be to bow before simple and individual acts of humility and kindness, to respect the history and culture of the ‘other’ as something to be treasured and protected, to end violence of the heart and mind as well as the hand. It is time, to dream…together!

Wm Paul Young

www.wmpaulyoung.com

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World Vision. Duck Dynasty. Global Warming. Noah. Muslims. And, uh….Jesus.

Seems like a lot of folks are mad these days. Just check your Facebook and Twitter accounts if you haven’t noticed.

Growing up, I don’t remember any Christians being mad at anything. We weren’t engaged, and we were happy. Racial issues were for “those people in the South” to deal with. Issues of sexuality were never talked about. Women’s rights were an “interesting discussion” that some folks in New York City were having. And Al Gore hadn’t invented either the internet (so we could follow these bad things) or Global Warming.

Life was good!

And…we were in the dark. At least Evangelical Christians were. I’m not sure if we didn’t care or didn’t know. Or both. But ignorance, is indeed, bliss.

Now it seems the opposite is true. We’re upset about everything. World Vision wants to employ and give benefits to gay couples. Oops, no they don’t. Duck Dynasty’s stars say some things that are racist and/or anti-gay. We’re concerned that our planet is melting and the seals and whales are dying. That the movie Noah isn’t biblical. And obviously that Muslims are taking over the world and killing people everywhere. And we’re upset about it.

I’ve seen this phenomena in my work. I take conservative politicians and Christian leaders on Middle East trips from time to time. They go in very pro-Israel and fairly clear about what’s right and what’s wrong. Then they actually meet people in Lebanon. They meet Palestinian Refugees there. They didn’t even know there were Palestinian refugees. Then we travel to the West Bank and they see checkpoints and a huge wall and Israeli soldiers and hear real stories from real Palestinian people who are being hurt and oppressed….and….my friends get angry.

“Why don’t I know about this?” is the most common statement I hear. “We need to let people back in America know the truth” they say. I agree. But I also caution them. Because unbridled zealotry can be harmful. It will cause our friends here in the West who think they know the truth to be even more stubborn and unwilling to learn when confronted with their worst fears and the realization that those fears aren’t even true.

And that’s it – fear. I wonder if this “being against stuff” trend that I see in blogs and posts every day mostly about fear? We’re afraid we’re losing our identity. Or, that our identity has been placed in the wrong thing and we’re not sure what the new thing is. Or is it fear that we’re losing power? Or that others are using power against us?

Whenever I feel the urge to caution or warn or explain, I have to wonder why. Why do I feel the need to do that? It almost always exposes something deeper within me. A need to be heard and understood. A need to feel secure in who I am, what I’m for and who’s not on my side. Insecurity.

I often think of all thing things Jesus should have spoken against in the year 30 AD. All the issues we have today, he had, and more. Abortion. Bad theology. Religious leaders using their power for the wrong reasons. Sexual everything. Bad politics and corruption and abuse of power. He lived in the middle of that every day.

And…he spoke of a coming Kingdom that was greater than all of these issues. He was focused. Didn’t lose track or lose touch. He did spend some time speaking out against his own religious leaders and their hypocrisy and that’s about it.

i want to be the same. Continually taking the logs out of my eye and lifting up Jesus. I’d rather be for Him than against a Christian organization, a TV show, an environmental issue, a movie, or 1.6 billion people. Jesus is better.

A Poem from my good friend in Basque Country

Glass shatters, sun light flows, a biting wind awakes my soul. I see, after all, that life is light, not sharp clear panes. I took glass for beauty, yet it was the penetrating wind that awoke me to see through, see the view, to see You.

With words,

We condemn as casually as breath flows out,

Loving sparingly as if a trickle could nourish the flood plains

When we need the deluging river.

My skin, with fragments of glass, feels the wind as I walk, out.

My daughter is already there playing in the breeze;

My wife by the brook, refreshing.

I’m tired by words, energized by words. There are words, though not eloquent, that soothe my soul. And there are words, lucid and doctrinal, that harm me. The phrases may be correct, may profess a desire for truth, yet they wound. They could never be found in Your mouth.

You said, “Don’t judge.”

We add: “unless…”.

We scold the “lost” as if we had never been.

Yet I see, with the wind in my face, just how “lost” we “found” can be.

Lost in a way almost impossible to see.

We have lost humility, the ability to see.

The glass is stained.

There is a day that resounds in my soul, an unsought email, an opinion turned valuation.

A confident, evangelical man charged me to preach both testaments, the whole Bible.

To preach the gospel, he said.

Not. Just. Jesus.

I had never felt such a jolt, the crash nearly audible.

Is He not the old and the new?

Is He not the fullness of the gospel?

The. Good. News?

The glass that cuts the wind and chills the light

Jabs at my feet as I walk to the stream.

To see myself clearly reflected.

I, too, judge and burden, lose sight of the way, speak heartless words,

Get lost.

It’s just that today my window broke, the Light flooding in,

And the Wind woke me.

By Jonathan McCallum

@peoplepoesia

Answering Donald Miller on the Local Church

Discussing whether or not we should be part of a local church is similar to deciding whether you should call yourself a Christian or not.  It’s complicated. Every word depends on what that word means to you, and to everyone reading the word. Descriptors, clauses, parenthesis, disclaimers and every other form of nuance are required, and misunderstanding is still likely.



Donald Miller is one of my all time favorite writers.  He often writes what I think. I’ve met him a couple times, spent a day with him in Portland, and have tons of mutual friends with him. I feel like I know him.  The dark side in me (and there are plenty) smiled when I saw his recent blog.  When he wrote a long multi-page follow up (Why I Don’t Go to Church Very Often) a couple of days later “explaining himself” I thought – “Yep, feels like my world.” But “explaining myself” seldom works. if you haven’t read those two blogs yet, I suggest you do. The first of the two is here.



Here’s the issue as I see it, and even Donald in all his brilliance (and Bob Goff by association) misses this. It’s in clearly defining that pesky word, “Church.”  

Don says he doesn’t go to church, or at least not very often. Bob has told me he also doesn’t feel committed to one local church, but that “we are the church.”  Fair enough. I have tons of friends in that boat.  But…it depends on what you’re talking about, as to whether or not this makes any sense.

Here’s how I do this.  There is The Church. Universal. Anyone who has submitted themselves to God through Jesus Christ is part of the world-wide church.  Not all who call themselves Christians are in this Church. And some who claim other religions, or none at all, may be.  It’s the spiritual Church and Jesus is the Pastor, Priest, and Great Shepherd.  One Church. One Leader.  We’ll call this C1.

 Most of us loosely agree on this definition of The Church.

Where it gets fuzzy is the local expression. I’ll divide that into two parts. C2 will be the local expression of the C1 (Big C church) in a building with a structure and systems and earthly local leaders. We ask questions like “Where do you go to church?”  And they answer by saying “First Baptist down the road.”  Or we say as we drive home from C2, “Church was good today.”

 That’s C2.

C3 is what Don and Bob and many other “leaders” (according to Don – and it’s also true in my experience) have opted for.  It’s wherever we are. We are the church.  Whenever we meet for any reason. Particularly if we bring Jesus into the discussion and have some kind of community exercise – then we’re the church. That’s C3.  It’s valid.

Because if we are referring to C1 (the Big C Church) as the definition, then wherever we go, of course “we are the church.”

 Both C2 and C3 are valid “members” of C1.

The fact that Don and others don’t connect with God in this or that style of worship, or singing, or whatever, really isn’t that important.  It might be important for them, but it’s really not part of the same discussion.  Don quotes Bob Goff as saying “When we study someone without getting to know them it’s like stalking.” I totally agree.  And some who go to C2 local churches that meet in buildings are doing that.  But do we think that some of the ones who have opted out of C2 for C3 don’t do the same?



Here’s why Chris and I try to practice both C2 and C3 regularly.



C2. Local Church in a building down the street (ours is called Mountain View Community Church).:

1. Habit and discipline are good things. 
Going every Sunday is a good discipline. The rebellion against “I don’t want to go just to go” is understandable, but can easily lead to a further disintegration of community and an increased individualism that only hurts us.

2.  If you add up everyone who comes to our local C2 church – we have about a 1000 folks.  They are people God loves. Because church (C2 or C3) is not about me, we go there for them. To say hi. To hopefully, at times, be a blessing.  Whether I “like” it or not seems irrelevant to me.


3.  There’s a lot in the Epistles about C2 church.  Instructions are fairly specific.  Ours surely doesn’t look that much like the one in Acts, but probably more like the one in Corinthians – a mess, but still loved by God and full of wonderful people who are wanting desperately to love God and follow Jesus.



4. These local C2 congregations can cluster together and do a ton of good in a city. It’s not the only way to be a blessing to a city – but it can work wonders when C2 churches bind together to serve a specific locale. They have more resources than C3 communities have. The Art of Neighboring stuff from my friends Dave Runyon and Jay Pathak are good examples of this.

5. It’s helpful to point our friends and neighbors who are beginning to follow Jesus to a specific place for worship, teaching and fellowship. This can happen in C3 as well, as long as it’s specific enough to clearly connect your friends there.

C3:  Local church being wherever you are.



1.  We have community in our cul-de-sac.  We have it on our street. We meet together and read the scriptures. We pray for each other.  We love each other.  That’s C3.


2. We just had some of the best and most intensely focused C3 church last week in DC at the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s like a big family reunion of like-minded people. About 70 of our best friends from the Middle East came.  And probably the same number of our closest American friends (amongst the total 3500 people).  We prayed, laughed, cried.  We sang. We listened. We counseled.  And then listened some more.  We hugged. Some got mad. Others called their friends to join last minute cause it was so good. But others won’t come back (they didn’t like such and such).   Doesn’t that sound a lot like “church?”


3.  We have moments at coffee shops. Times with our friends at a barbecue.

That’s also church. Because Don is right – we are the church. And Bob is correct – we don’t want to be bystanders.

 The question though is this – do we need to leave C2 to be part of C3? I say NO WAY.  We need both. Both are vital.  If I don’t connect with God during the singing of my C2 church down the street – who cares? Maybe God wants to connect with me!

 And finally, we should hope and strive for C3 happening within C2.  I don’t know any local pastor of a C2 church who doesn’t want more real “life on life” community.  Of course they do.  And if you don’t find much C3 community at your C2 church, well guess what you can do…..  

Jesus didn’t Teach!

Try this one for an all time great Bible trivia question with someone who knows the scriptures well. “What was Jesus doing in the temple when he was 12 years old and his family left town forgetting him there?”

Never mind the hilariousness of the holy family forgetting Jesus (Luke 2:41-52), or that it took them three days to find him, or that Jesus didn’t seem to mind…or…oh, so many funny things here. But back to the trick question – what was Jesus doing in the temple?

Everyone answers that “He was teaching.” Not so. Here’s what Luke says in verse 46: (…he was) “sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions.”

Imagine: Sitting. Listening. Asking good questions. That’s what Jesus was doing in the temple – I don’t think anyone I’ve ever asked that to knew that this is what he was doing.

Now to be fair, the next verse does say that everyone was amazed at his understanding and his answers. All the more profound. That his questions back were so good that they were actually answers. The highest form of a good answer is always in the form of a better question. Socrates first perfected this. Young Jewish Rabbis had to learn to answer with a question. Try it.

Other times in the gospels, Jesus does teach. Straight up good old informative didactic teaching. The Sermon on the Mount is an example. Although a careful read of those three chapters in Matthew will also reveal mostly stories, allegories, metaphors, over-statements (for affect) and questions.

Here’s why I entitled this blog entry (#3 in the “Who is this Man” series), “Jesus didn’t Teach!” It’s because we’re all taught that teaching has three or four points to its linear design. A plus B equals C. Straight line. Logic. All things neatly wrapped up in a well taught bow and delivered to the brain in a digestive tablet. I would suggest Jesus never did that. Or at least, he seldom did that.

It’s funny that our bible colleges, seminaries and churches train us to teach in a way very different from Jesus. Maybe it’s okay. We need to connect to our Western linear based audience (if you’re in the West, at least). So maybe we’ve contextualized by teaching more like Paul rather than Jesus. Maybe. Except people love it when I tell stories. Everyone I’ve met in the whole world – west and east – young and old – love a good story. They enjoy being challenged to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions. All things Jesus was a master at doing.

Maybe we should rethink “teaching.” If the point is to train someone to think, believe and live like Jesus – then starting with how he did that might not be such a bad thing.

So….I guess Jesus DID teach – just not like me.

A Real Man!

This is the first in my series “Who is the Man?” Asking the question of who Jesus was. We can’t fully know who he is now, if we don’t understand who he was then.

He was a man. Duh! you say. Well, not so fast. Many of us grew up in a form of Christianity that highlighted Jesus’ deity and downplayed his humanity. We always said that “he was fully human” but I’m not sure we believed it.

When was the last time you heard about Jesus being tempted to lust? Or thought about Mary changing his diapers? Did it stink?

And when we think of a manly man – is the first one we think of, Jesus? It should be! He’s often portrayed as a feminine or uni-sex fair-skinned, flowing-haired, 1960′s hippy with very little personality and a soft melodic voice. Not to over-caricuture the “Wild at Heart” version of a “real man” but it’s way more likely that Jesus was a rugged stud. I doubt you’d want to wrestle him. Stone masons and carpenters (he was probably a bit of both) had to be strong. Iron man strong. Walking the length of his most common trek in ancient Palestine from Nazareth down to Capernaum and then back up and over to Jerusalem would be over 100 miles one way, and he did that often.

To endure what he endured leading up to the cross would have been brutal. He was strong!

But not just physical strength. Think of the intense emotional strength he often exhibited. Imagine constantly being grilled by over-zealous Pharisees, Sadducees and Teachers of the Law everywhere you went – like Jesus was. If I ever think I’m under undue scrutiny, imagine the life of Christ. It takes incredible emotional will-power to handle them the way he did.

And that’s what I’ll talk about next time…..

Who is this Man?

The question for the ages – who is Jesus? It’s my question almost daily as he continues to impress and surprise me. But he also confuses me, annoys me, angers me, encourages me, and in every way…astonishes me. Who is this man?

I’m going to write a series of short blogs on this over the next weeks (as I attempt to write my new book – this is what I do when i have writer’s block, which is most of the time).

These thoughts on Jesus will be in the same progression that I would present him to someone who doesn’t know him very well. I will approach this discussion on Jesus with a few assumptions. They are:

1. That everyone would like to know Jesus if they knew the real Jesus. I do not mean, that they would choose to give up their lives and follow him, but simply that Jesus was usually a likable character when seen by an outsider. At least that’s always my assumption.

2. That Jesus was a man. We’ll get to the “god part” later. But I come into any discussion about Jesus thinking of him as a man. Fully human in every way. Just like us. All the same needs and desires. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs applied to him too.

3. That when I speak of the actual biblical Middle Eastern Jesus, he both confused and attracted people to himself. When I speak of the Western Christianized Jesus that lives in my head – not so much.

4. That I can only understand him so much. The WWJD thing doesn’t do it for me for at least two reasons: One, is that I don’t really know what Jesus would do. And secondly, most of the time I can’t even figure out what he DID do, let alone what he would do now. So I’m working off of the assumption that my very limited understanding of who Jesus was – 2000 years ago – gives me enough hints that I can make some best guesses at what he would do if he were living through my life today. But that won’t be the point of these blogs. They will focus on his earthly life.

With that, we’re ready to dive into discovering who this man was. 2000 years ago in the region of Palestine. A Jewish carpenter’s son. Who has changed my life.