THE WAY OF JESUS - as posted on FB
Page 1
Let me make this easy for the reader.
I
will state the principles Jesus worked from and the reader can either
walk away or dig in deeper. It’s just that fast and easy. No one need
wade through a ton of research and jargon before they decide whether
they even want to have this conversation. However, if you do want to
have this conversation, an open-minded conversation, then I will really
do my best to speak clearly and succinctly.
I could have titled
this treaties as, The Way of Christ, but not everyone regards Jesus as
the Christ, but anyone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth is a “real”
historical figure in space and time may be able to see and appreciate
the points I am trying to make here.
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THE WAY OF JESUS - page 2
First and foremost, The Way of Jesus, is about “doing the will of his Father.”
According
to his own words, Jesus' entire focus in life was the surrender to—the
performing of—and the accomplishing of—the will of his Father.
Sounds
amazing, but in doing “this” will he was, by default, rejecting his
own. Jesus had no separate will from the Father. That does not mean he
did not have free will. Rather it establishes that his had free will,
because he "chose" the will of the Father over his own. He was not an
automaton.
Choosing the will of the Father is the repudiation of
taking any reputation or power to himself.
Taking any kind of power
to himself would have been the opposite of doing his Father’s will.
He
gives up himself and his own plans for this world. He receives and
embraces the will and vision of another. This is huge. Why? Because in
this voluntary act of surrender Jesus shows us his WAY.
The WAY
OF JESUS begins with the unreserved and complete embracing of the will
of his Father. If we are to begin walking the WAY of Jesus, then we must
follow the path of the surrender of our own will -- the choice to yield
to and embrace the will of God.
Jesus said about himself, “I
have come down from heaven to do my Father’s will.” (John 6:38) And then
he tells us that our calling is the same as his, "“Not everyone who
says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the
one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
To
be a Christian, to be a true child of God, is not predicated on what
one “believes” but on what one “does.” This idea sounds like it flies in
the face of much of Christian practices these days, and it does, but it
is, nonetheless, at the very core of the gospel Jesus preached. Jesus
was no "revolutionary" or "political" personality. He wasn't even a
"religious" man in the way people usually think of religion. Jesus was
the Son of God, sent into this world to do one thing — to accomplish the
will of his Father.
People lose out with God because they say
to Him, “My will be done.” And they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven
because God grants them their desire — to have their own way — to be the
god of their own life — to shape their world in their own way.
They cannot enter heaven because heaven is where the will of God is done — without any resistance.
No
one is allowed to merely add God onto their life and then go on living
as though God is with them in order to help them succeed at getting
their own way. No. We are all called to the same orientation to the will
of God as was Jesus - to surrender to, to embrace, and to “do” the will
of God. Let’s talk about what that looked like in his life. It is
pretty shocking on a number of levels.
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