Saturday, August 1, 2009

An Engaging Example...

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps..."

-1 Peter 2 v 21


A lot of the time in my day to day life, it's easy to think back to times when events occurred that I had never dreamt would have occurred. In my life, most of these events seem to be of the negative nature. Last Monday for example was the one year anniversary of my Uncle Mike's death to cancer. And never once before it happened did I think that it would. But looking at the world today, I can't help but be shocked at the amount of suffering in the world.

Suffering is a terrible thing...Or at least that's what a lot of people say. I see so much suffering, not just globally, but in the lives of my closet friends and family. And it breaks my heart to see each of them go through whatever has befallen them. But its as times like this where I look with awe at the universe, and know that there must be something greater than all this...

You're probably expecting me to go into a talk about why God allows suffering, and, while I do love discussing the topic, that is for a different time. What I do want to talk about is something that has really been on my heart for quite sometime.

At some stage of my life, a question was posed to a group of people, of which I was included. And what shocked me was the answer to come after it;

"Why did Jesus come to Earth simply to die?"

See the logic behind this question is that in fact, Jesus came for another reason. If He had come simply to die, then why did He simply not die when He was simply an infant? People are going to give the answer that He had so much more to teach...the very answer that I was shocked by.

Christ came, not only to die for our sins, but as an example as to how we can live the lives God intended us to live. And I think a lot of the time we forget that fact, that Jesus came to teach, to serve, and to show us how we should live.

But oddly enough, through reading of Scripture, Jesus' purpose can actually be structured as the following; His purpose was to glorify God.

Whenever I think about glory, my head always starts to hurt. I mean, it’s so hard to pin down a rock solid definition of what glory is. Its origin is in the word "glow" as in to radiate or to shine. Jesus is repeatedly connected to this;

"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word..."

-Hebrews 1 v 3

"For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness, “made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ..."

-2 Corinthians 4 v 6


As such, Jesus' complete purpose was to show the glory of God in all things. This not only included His ministry and the way He connected with people, but also in His pain and His suffering. When we think of the Cross, we don't normally think of it as a place where God's glory was shown, but in fact, it is one of the clearest places that it is seen.

Many people I know today, including myself, often focus on the Cross as a place where sin was defeated and where the connection between man and God was restored. This is not something that is wrong, but we also miss that through dying on the Cross, Jesus showed us how to live a life full of God's glory, the life that God wants us to live.

Jesus dying on the Cross was as much an example of the life we should live as was His ministry. For there at the Cross, we see part of God's glory shining through the darkness. Through His suffering, we see that the joy that he tasted was pure. And this is because there was a purpose to His suffering, namely to show the glory of God.

"After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you...""

-John 17 v 1


At the Cross, we see the humility of Jesus. Jesus, the God-Man...I know a lot of the time I have forgotten this fact that, while Jesus was fully God, He became flesh, and entered into the world, removing Himself of His divine privileges, being able to identify with us and become our example, and suffered for the world, showing humility that we too are called to live by. Hypostasis is the term used to describe the divinity of Christ, in that He had two persons, the divine, and the human.

I know also that Jesus went through all that we have to go through and more. Granted, Jesus wasn't tempted by internet porn and hard drugs, but He went through His life sharing in our pain and sorrow, the only difference being that He was sinless. The times may have changed, but the sins and the sinners remain.

The life that we are called to live by can only be achieved through being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is through Jesus that we can see the example left for us; the life Jesus lived was the perfect representation of a spirit-filled and spirit-led life.

It must be said however that His death on the Cross mustn’t be overlooked. If Jesus died only as an example of humility and of the life God has called us to live, it would've been pointless. Yes, we'd be able to see the kind of life to live, but we never would have received anything to accomplish this. Therefore, Jesus' death on the Cross must be seen as the gateway into which we can live the spirit-filled and spirit-led life, the life devoted to shining the glory of God for the world to see. It is from the life that Jesus lived, the good and the bad, His joy and His suffering, and His work on the Cross, that we can look at His life and death as an engaging example.

Let Him be the Nexus of your Life...

"Christians are like nails...The harder you hit them, the deeper they go..."

"But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. “They hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed..."

-1 Peter 2 v 20-24

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