Day 25: Walking Like Jesus Walked 24/7

Day 25: Walking Like Jesus Walked 24/7

Congratulations! You've made it to day number twenty-five. It has taken some effort and sacrifice, but the benefits are paying off for you as you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. In the end that is what it's all about. You and Jesus, and your relationship and friendship with Him. Nothing more, and nothing less. It is my prayer that in these final six days, your relationship with Jesus will continue to grow and that you will continue growing throughout the rest of 2011. Here is today's Devotional Help to assist you in reaching your Goal!


A preview of Heaven


We have been learning in this 30 day spiritual journey that the most important thing in your life, as far as eternity is concerned, is your relationship with God. God, who is Holy and immortal, without beginning or ending, has initiated a way by which sinful human beings can be forgive of their sins and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, God's Unique and Only Son. That is a title, by the way, since Jesus Christ is just as much God as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. God is a community, and Jesus Christ is one of the three persons of the Godhead. If you feel like you are lost, don't worry, you are in good company. That is why this side of heaven, we will never understand perfectly and clearly all things. However, one thing that is clear and perfect is God's revelation of His love to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God loves us! And that even while we were His enemies (Romans 5:8). 


With that in mind, have you ever wondered what meeting Jesus in Heaven will be like? You know that Jesus is preparing a place for you and that He can't wait to meet you in person and give you a "bear hug" (ok, that's what i want to do when I first see Him!). Do you think Jesus will ask you anything in particular that glorious day? If so, what might He ask you? Do you think He will ask you about why you didn't eat more veggie dogs instead of In N' Out Burgers? Do you think He will ask you why you didn't dress with less revealing and provocative clothing for the opposite sex? Do you think He will ask you why you didn't listen to more Heritage Singers instead of Christian Rock and upbeat Gospel music? What if anything, will Jesus ask you on that glorious day? While God's word does not speculate on what Jesus may or may not ask the righteous on resurrection morning or the first day in Heaven, we do find in the Bible a great lesson that Jesus hopes every true follower of His will live and exemplify in this life. Are you ready to discover it? If so, here it is!


Eternity starts this side of Heaven


1 John 2: 4-6 says,

"We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."

Did you catch that? God's desire for you and me is that we live and walk as Jesus did. How do we do that? By following Jesus and His Commandments for our life. You see, to know someone is to obey someone. I really can't say I know God if I am living in disobedience to His Will and to His Commandments. In fact, I can't say that I love God, unless I obey Him and His Commandments. Here is where the rubber meets the road. It's possible to try and keep the commandments of God out of fear of being lost or going to Hell. I once had a friend who told me, "Man I'm scared. I don't want to go to hell."  However, trying to obey out of fear is doing something good for the wrong reason. While the "fear of the Lord" is the beginning of wisdom, God wants us to learn to obey Him because we have come to love Him and desire to do His Will. 

When you know Jesus, you will love Jesus, and you will walk and live like Jesus. That is our goal in the next six days of this thirty day journey. We want to live and walk like Jesus would if he were on earth today. We need to get to know Jesus more, by studying the Bible, praying, and telling others what we got out of Bible study and prayer. That is called witnessing. We want to spend time with Jesus each day, not for the purpose of checking it off of our "Need to do in order to be saved list". But instead, we want to spend quality time with Jesus, just because we want to get to know Him as Our Personal Savior and Friend. Can you agree to doing that in the next six days? If so, then let's get started.

Who is Jesus? 

Jesus Christ. A name and title. Jesus is the Greek form of the name Joshua which means, "the Lord saves", and Christ is the Greek Title for "Anointed One" (Messiah in Hebrew). Jesus Christ is more than just a religious, moral, or ethical teacher. He's much more that just a religious teacher and founder of a world religion. He claimed to be God in human flesh, and you can't just dismiss that fact of history. It's like me walking into your house later today and saying that I am the New President of the United States of America. Well, either I am or I am not. It can't be both ways. In fact, the claims that Jesus made are outstanding. 

On one occasion He said, "If anyone keeps my word, He will never see death." On another occasion He said, "He who believes in me will never die!" However, his claims go beyond to the point of saying that He was the One true God of Heaven that came to reveal his love and save a lost and sinful world. These claims either must be accepted on the grounds of Jesus being crazy, a fraud, or else you have to believe that he was telling the truth. 

For myself, I don't believe Jesus was a Lunatic or crazy because He didn't say and act in a crazy way! Crazy people and lunatics don't do and say the type of things Jesus did. Instead, they are locked up in mental hospitals. Well, could he be a liar, a fraud, or a conman? After all, if He was just a normal human being who believed or taught He was God, then he purposefully deceived people into worshiping Him and following Him as God. 

The teachings of Jesus go contrary to that of lying, cheating, deceiving, or manipulating. Jesus taught to love your enemies, bless others, to serve, to treat others as you would want them to treat you. His teachings are the most ethical teaching in the entire corpus of literature and history. No way could Jesus have been a fraud, or a conman. So what does that leave us with? 

Well, if Jesus was neither a lunatic or a Liar, if he was neither a conman or a madman, then He must be the the God-man and Lord of all. I like how C.S. Lewis puts it. 

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."


Lewis, C.S. (Clive Staples), Mere Christianity, revised edition, New York, Macmillan/Collier, 1952, p. 55 ff.

Conclusion

So today, take a break from your busy schedule. Grab a cold drink (Not a beer, ok?) and sit in a comfortable and relaxing chair. Grab your Bible concordance and Bible and look in the Gospels at some of the claims Jesus did. You need to answer this question in your life today? Who is Jesus Christ? And second, "What am I going to do with Jesus who called Christ?" When you answer these two questions, you will have answered the two greatest questions that exist this side of Heaven. You will be able to move forward and to live with a new and fresh perspective. Are you ready to do so?

Practical Steps

1. Worship Jesus as God. The Bible teaches that Jesus is God, and one of the members of the Godhead. He is worthy of worship, praise, and adoration. It is ok to worship Jesus. 

2. Look at some of the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in his life. There are over 60 major prophecies and Jesus fulfilled them all during this life. Could this have been just an accident?

3. Recognize the Jesus Christ is the Creator of Universe and everything in it. See Genesis 1, John 1, Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1.

4. Read the book, More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell.

5. Worship the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) with all of your mind as well as your heart. Start to learn and memorize reasons why you can believe in the Bible and in Jesus as the Only Savior of the world. These field is called apologetics. Some of the best authors are Josh McDowell, William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, C.S. Lewis, and Norman Geisler. Apologetics is a greek word "apologia" which means defense. Thus apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith with evidence and reasons from Scripture, Science, History, etc. 

~ Pastor Sal Garcia