(All
Scripture quotes are from the AMP Bible unless otherwise stated.)
Today
I would like to share with you WHO Jesus really was…both fully God AND fully
man.
“And
the men were stunned with bewildered wonder and marveled, saying, What kind of Man is this, that even the
winds and the sea obey Him!” Matthew 8:27
The
disciples must have thought to themselves “We have never seen anybody do this
before. There must be something special;
he’s not like us!” What they thought is
true, Jesus was not like them, and yet he WAS like them. Jesus was the Son of the living God, yet He
WAS also a man living in the self-imposed limitations that men naturally are
limited to. He was born through a woman
and had human brothers and sisters. He
was self-confined to being physically in one place at a time whereas normally
He is omnipresent. He lived as a man AND
interacted in the spiritual realm as men do, healing from a distance through
His word (Mat. 8:13), seeing inside a person’s heart (John 1:48), and see the
future (Luke 21:6).
Today,
I would like you to put aside your pre-conceived ideas about Jesus and learn two
very important things about Him.
First, see
Him as God in all His power and glory.
When we see
Jesus as God, then we can properly attribute to Him the glory due unto His
Name, even when we see His humanity shining through. In John 1:1-4 we see that John had no problem
seeing His divinity: “In the beginning [before all time] was the
Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not
even one thing made that has come into being.
In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.” Jesus Himself even said it, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30, NRSV). Remember when Philip asked Him to show him
the Father? Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip,
and you still do not know me?” (John 14:8-11) Essentially Jesus told him that since he,
Philip, had seen and come to know Jesus then he HAD seen and come to know the
Father. In Matthew 8 the disciples saw
Jesus do what no mere man could do, silencing the storm. They saw Him as God in all His power and
glory.
Second, see Him as the best example of faith.
“Lord, just speak the word and it will be done” (Matt. 8:5–13). Jesus commented on the centurion’s
faith. The centurion, a Roman soldier
used to commanding over 100 men, asked Jesus to heal his servant. He knew Jesus could command the healing even
at a distance and it would be done. What
did Jesus do? Did He get off by himself
to pray-up the healing? Did He gather a
bunch of believers around Him to pray for the servant? No.
First he commented to all those around Him about how great the
centurions faith was and then He said, “Go;
it shall be done for you as you have believed. And the servant boy was restored
to health at that very moment.” Jesus’ own faith was exercised as He spoke
and the servant was healed.
How could He
act in this faith?
1) He KNEW Who He was. “And
when Jesus was baptized, He went up at once out of the water; and behold, the
heavens were opened, and he [John] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and alighting on Him. And behold, a
voice from heaven said, This is My Son, My Beloved, in Whom I delight!” At the start of His earthly ministry God the
Father affirmed Him. The dictionary
tells us that to affirm something or someone is to “declare something to be
true” and to “declare support for someone or something”. God Himself affirmed that Jesus was His
Son. Jesus knew Who He was and God
affirmed that so He acted on that.
2) As a man He spent REGULAR time with God the
Father. (Matthew 26:36; Luke 9:18; Luke 9:28; John 17). Jesus’ faith in the Father was based on intimate knowledge of Him.
It was the same type of intimate relationship that He desired to bring the
disciples into (John 15:9–17). However, to be one with Jesus and the faith, the
disciples needed to increase and grow their faith in Him. It was the one
component that would allow them to see Jesus as God and as their Lord and
Savior. Faith is also the one ingredient that connects us to the Lord our God
and must be operative in our lives. To
grow in that faith WE need the same type of intimate relationship with God the
Father. We need to spend regular time
with Him.
So, in
conclusion let me ask two things of you:
Do you know who YOU are? Jesus said, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed you
[I have planted you], that you might go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that
your fruit may be lasting [that it may remain, abide], so that whatever you ask
the Father in My Name [as presenting all that I Am],
He may give it to you.” John
15:16
Are
you spending regular time with the Father so your faith can grow?
“Now
faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we]
hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real
fact what is not revealed to the senses]… But without faith it is impossible to
please and be satisfactory to
Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God
exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]”.
Hebrews 11:1, 6
