The Jesus I Never Knew

by Philip Yancey

According to Jesus, what I think about him and how I respond will determine my destiny for all eternity.

Must accept him…

obstinacy frustrated him, self-righteousness infuriated him, simple faith

What is simple faith? Simple faith in action?

Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on his own terms, regardless of the personal cost.

Very difficult lesson for us…

Jesus had a realistic view of how the world would respond to him: “Because of the increase17 of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”

And we see it it the world today…

There is only one way for any of us to resolve the tension between the high ideals of the gospel and the grim reality of ourselves: to accept that we will never measure up, but that we do not have to. We are judged by the righteousness of the Christ who lives within, not our own.

May be the hardest part for believers?

Although faith may produce miracles, miracles do not necessarily produce faith.

Yes people still refuse to believe even when something is unexplained….

If we cannot detect God’s presence in the world, it may be that we have been looking in the wrong places.

Or not truly looking at all…

Since we cannot express our love by doing anything to profit God directly, God wants us to do something profitable for the poor, who have been delegated the task of receiving Christian love.

The widows and orphans….

“Where is God when it hurts?” I have often asked. The answer is another question, “Where is the church when it hurts?”

The church needs to step up.

I view with amazement Jesus’ uncompromising blend of graciousness toward sinners and hostility toward sin, because in much of church history I see virtually the opposite.

This is such a true statement and has driven so many away!

All too often, sinners feel unloved by a church that, in turn, keeps altering its definition of sin — exactly the opposite of Jesus’ pattern. Something has gone awry.

Corporate church has issues. What must we return to as a church to get this right? This is the key to spreading the gospel.

The man from Nazareth was a sinless friend of sinners, a pattern that should convict us on both counts.

We must love, not hate, alienate, scold, or put down. Love and instruct when necessary or asked.

As late as Jesus’ last night with them, after they had heard all the claims and seen all the miracles, one of them asked the Teacher, “Show us7 the Father.” Still they could not grasp it. Jesus was never clearer in his response: “Anyone who has seen8 me has seen the Father.”

See below….

Jesus presents a God with skin on whom we can take or leave, love or ignore. In this visible, scaled-down model we can discern God’s features more clearly.

He said to know him is to know the Father.

“What good does it do to pray if God already knows everything?” Jesus silences such questions: he prayed, so should we.

This is always an interesting topic. Prayer changes is more than it changes externals.

“Philip, do you ever just let God love you?” she said. “It’s pretty important, I think.”

For me, the answer is no. I need to learn to do this.