07/21/2025
Do we accept the teaching of a college professor who we don’t believe in? Would we allow a surgeon to operate on us if we didn’t believe in his ability to successfully perform the operation? What about applying this to our faith? Have we placed Jesus first and foremost in our lives as our teacher, and what is the danger in doing this? Why is it more important that we should put “Jesus the Redeemer” before “Jesus the Teacher” in our lives?
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3 KJV
I read a devotional message by Pastor Oswald Chambers this morning and he was speaking of the futility of trying to live as Jesus did... perfectly... and to attain a Christ-like state of purity by merely reading His teaching and then attempting to imitate Him. I thought of how we are often instructed to ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" Even before we understand the deeper and more enabling question "what DID Jesus do?" Let's read a brief statement by Chambers...
"... when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition." - Oswald Chambers
Hmmmm... Can we truly be like Jesus without first receiving His redemption? Are we simply being judged by our actions, or is the more telling judgement being passed by weighing our actions by what is in our hearts? Are we taught to “fake it until we make it”, or are we meant to accept what God offers us in His Son first… then to live it and grow in it?
Before all else Jesus loved God. Without this, then all His perfect adherence to the law was worthless; it was just mechanical repetition; it was another indictment of humanity... His gospel would simply have been more laws that we would fall short in living. If all we have is imitation, then we are like a child's toy that gets wound up and then set on the ground to robotically go through a set of motions.
Even if we can do unto our neighbor as we would have Him do unto us, is that good enough, or should we be doing these things out of love, and a desire to please our Heavenly Father. Aren’t we meant to long and to do His will with all our hearts? Until we receive the true gift of Jesus Christ, then all that is left for us are His teachings, and to do as He did like a wind-up toy. What pleasure is there in this for God... or satisfaction for us?
So, before we begin to go through the motions by acting as Jesus did, we need to understand why, and claim the redemption He offers us; we need to understand this pivotal message...
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
John 3:16-17 KJV
The gift of Jesus, the culmination of the grand plan that began with creation, all comes down to one simple message "For God so loved the world." Jesus taught us many things, but the message He brought to us was much more than "Do this!" It was "Love God who loves you"
There is a well-known, and rather humorous, saying that holds a great deal of truth; it goes like this...
"Those who can, do, those who can't teach, and those who can do neither administer." - Calvin Calverley
Well in the case of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, they are able to do all three of these! Jesus did, the Holy Spirit teaches, and God administers. Yet without the ingredient of love, none of this has the importance and meaning that God desired from the moment of creation. We often forget that God made all of creation as a place for man, and man for His glory... not the other way around.
“I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Isaiah 43:6-7 ESV
Jesus wasn't the harbinger of the end of creation, or sent to deliver another set of laws... although He did both... He was sent to deliver the message of God's love to mankind, and to show, and serve, as our redemption from sin and to defeat death for us. Jesus is God’s Son who was an emissary sent with the peace plan of God... the one that says all is forgiven, and reestablishes tranquility, and He sealed this plan with His own blood.
“for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Matthew 26:28 ESV
So yes... we are poor in spirit and have nothing without Jesus. Don’t we beg at His feet for the very redemption He brings... and His blessings? Then, once blessed and lifted up, we follow His lessons with our hearts properly aligned. Until we receive His redemption we have nothing, and are only a shadow of what God intends us to be. Attempting to imitate Jesus is dangerous because it gives us false hope in our own ability. It isn't until we accept Him as God's gift of love and forgiveness that following Him makes sense. It would be like reading the Declaration of Independence and not grasping the concept of liberty or living within the covenant of marriage without understanding love. Jesus is first and foremost our redeemer, and then after that, He teaches us to live the life of the redeemed.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ! Thank you for your love and redemption through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Thank you, Father, for the promise of His return, and the lessons He left me with which will sustain me until that day. Your love for me is humbling, and has circumcised my heart... it lays bare the longing I have for you and brings my desire for your presence to new heights through my burgeoning love and faith. You are my God and in you I find peace and a love that knows no bounds. Our relationship, yours and mine, was established from the first word of creation, and your will for me sealed from before the very void and darkness that was upon the face of the deep. You desired for man to know and love you Father, and then you began to teach us how. This is the gift of Jesus. He came to reestablish our relationship with you, and then to teach us to live in it once more. Holy is He our redeemer, and Holy, Holy, Holy, are you... my God Almighty! Have mercy on me Father, on me who is poor in spirit, but was created in your image and for your glory. As I walk through this world help me in my unbelief and increase me in my faith as I mature in our relationship… feel my love for you Abba, made possible and complete by the redemption of my sin through the power of your love, and the redeeming blood of Christ Jesus.
Amen!
“The bedrock in Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sensed of absolute futility – I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says – Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor. The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus works.” – Oswald Chambers
Rich Forbes