Who is Jesus?

Jesus asked the question, "Who do men say that I am?" He asked this at the time of the greatest upheavel His disciples had ever faced. We are facing a similar time. It is the time prophesied when all things that can be shaken will be shaken. We need to answer this question now for we need to know, as did Peter, who Jesus is to us.

As I realized the Spirit was giving me a Word for this blog, the word "limitation" came to me. Every answer the disciples gave in response to Jesus' question was a limitation until Peter had a revelation from God. To see Jesus as our Savior is a revelation that brought New Birth. To see Jesus as our Healer is a revelation that brings healing. To see Him as our Priest is a revelation that brings us the peace that we have an intercessor who understands our limitation. Each of these viewpoints can be challenged by our human understanding and our faith shaken by human experience that reasons against a revelation and causes us to limit Jesus again in our thinking. Through all the years of Church history, man has struggled with the identity of Jesus and so found peace in the doctrine of the Trinity.

There is a key in the verse we know so well. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son... We have to go back to the beginning to understandd this. Back to eternity before there was any creation. The scientific world goes back to the Big Bang. We go farther to LOVE. God did not create us because He needed us. Remember well this one truth about God. God has no need. He is totally complete. He has no begiining. He fills all space and God is LOVE. Because He is so complete, God does not need process. Out of His love, God proclaimed to make man in His image. The eighth chapter of Proverbs goes back to this period. The wisdom to govern the workmanship of making man in the image of God was set aside out of God and the govern by covenant came into being. Everything in all creation is under covenant with God. In Genesis 1 we see that God rested from all His work of creation. That is such a significant statement that He made the Sabbath a covenant expectation, or demand, in His covenant with Israel. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and through Him we enter into His rest. But what does it mean for us that God rested? Another very significant scripture is Genesis 1:28. He gave man authority over his created habitation. We have to request God to move on our behalf and so we pray. We pray for wisdom, for help and guidance in all our ways. We give our authority back to God to move as He wills. (Not my will but Yours be done!) Prayer is our surrender of control back to Him. Many do not realize this and so dictate to God how to answer.

God knew that man would fail to respond to His covenant with man in obedience and relationship. Back in that eternity moment when God said, "Let US..." the plural ministry to create man was born. The protype of man in God's image was there. Colossians reveals Jesus in His ministry to creation. Only the Spirit of God can reveal to you the ultimate power of God to move without process. It is significant that Jesus is the ministry of Creation. It is the beginning of process. Instead of instant creation because of a thought of God, there is now the process of covenant. That was the revelation God gave me to see the setting aside of Wisdom for the control of making man in God's image became the beginning of covenant. All creation is protected by covenant. God will not destroy His creation outside of covenant. But covenant will be the avenue for its destruction. The lack of covenant response is permission for judgment. The timing in covenant becomes the protection of God's purpose. Until God has what was first proclaimed, man in His image, covenant will protect the process.

The awesome recognition of God's Love and Power comes from the revelation of Jesus that removes all limitation of man's reasoning concerning Him. We see a man moving thrugh a limited ministry, speaking and doing only what He sees the Father speaking and doing, and ending in death and resurrection. We form our own opinion of this based on our measure of faith. Paul called it seeing through a glass "darkly". Our "water realm" distorts our vision. Use the Spirit's glasses and see it through Love. Let the Spirit overwhelm your soul and spirit with His Love. God allowed the great power of creation to be loosed by The Word and energized by The Spirit and then sealed it into covenant by His signature of approval. Why? Because of His great love for us. Jesus is in the heart of this power source. What happened on that cross at Calvary? Jesus was in the heart of that power source. A likeness of man, under unimaginable distress of blood loss and suffering, can speak with a loud voice that is still ringing through time? We cannot imagine the suffering, the cost and the magnitude of that sacrifice for us, but can we even begin to imagine or understand the power source that was loosed in our behalf?