Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Can You Say "If You Have Seen Me, You Have Seen Jesus"?

My Utmost For His Highest
 
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
 
“The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God.”  CHAMBERS
 
(John 14:7-10) “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?”  When people see you … what you say and do … not in church .. but in the world … who do they see?  Do they see Jesus or do they see just another fellow traveler struggling to make do? We are to be indistinguishable (that is quite a word) from Jesus.  There was a popular saying some years ago, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do.  Great question, but it falls short of where God wants us to be.  We shouldn’t have to ask ourselves, “How should I behave?” in a certain situation.  Our response should flow from the heart as naturally as the breath from our lungs.  Our lives are to reflect Jesus all the time.
 
Do you think that is too much, too lofty a goal?  The bar has been set too high? Of course it is!  You can’t be the fragrance of Christ on your own.  (2 Corinthians 2:15) “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing”  It is supernatural.  Stop thinking it is something you must do by mustering up sufficient determination to do it.  You cannot.  (Galatians 2:20) “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  People will see Jesus on the outside when Jesus is allowed to be Jesus on the inside. And not until then.  ELGIN

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