There he goes, up from the river, into the back country. Nobody knows what happened other than what he says. He reports conversations with the devil.
Later, he would go into his hometown and speak about the Messianic Kingdom, in terms of fulfillment.
He refused to be a leader even when people wanted to make him one.
He chose to treated like a shepherd: despised, yet dealing with ravenous wolves.
He cared so much for those he tended to that he neglected to sit down for dinner. He was always talking about God and even talked about dying an early death, to the discomfort of his friends.
He knew those who hated him, but he still loved them.
He spoke against powerful leaders, yet was unafraid.
He promoted his mission shamelessly claiming that he would never leave his followers to the end of the age … and then he left … or did he?
This Jesus whom I talk about constantly is the Lord and Lifegiving Spirit.
Some run after visions in the wilderness only to chase this spirit or that spirit.
Others run after this denomination or that denomination.
A few claim to be the messiah themselves.
Personally, I am obsessed with the Man & Messiah: Jesus, Y’shua, Issa.
I cannot force him on anyone, but nor do I intentionally try to hide him. He has infected me with joy and I hope that that spreads to others. Sometimes I laugh at myself or the situation I am in, it is hard not to. Christ has conquered it all! Jesus really is King!
I lost my mind when I thought he was coming back in 3.5 days. Actually, he didn’t. Don’t worry, if you are reading this, you still have an opportunity to repent.
However, many people mistake the pictures of Christ for Jesus himself. They imagine Jesus to be a pleasant teacher who talked vaguely about intangible realities.
Actually, Jesus talked about life and death. He talked about sex and the dangers of sex outside the context of marriage. He talked about the risks of anger on your future. He talked about the failure of the day’s best religious trends to conquer the human heart.
Jesus claimed to be God.
He said, “Be before Abraham was, I am.”
A prophet is not just someone who confronts the age or opinion thereof, rather, a prophet is a God-guided & commissioned person whose words match the Life of Jesus and who emulates the life of God in their own walk.
I cannot claim to be a prophet, but I know that Jesus was more than merely a prophet.
He seemed confused to his family. His followers seem confused to the world. We face all kinds of difficulties, but those difficulties will be overcome through the blood of Jesus.
WHAT?? Human sacrifice is needed to cover our sins?
Yes. A particular sacrifice. A sinless sacrifice. A virgin’s sacrifice. Jesus.
No other way is available. We must tell the world about this. It must be told. We must tell everyone we can. We will seem like the village idiots when we confront sin. We will seem confused when we are so severe on self. We will seem stupid when we resist the ways of the world. But God’s confusion is more clever than the scholarship & psychiatry of the world.
Which will you choose?
Humanistic therapies & thoughts that lead to hell.
OR
Hope from the Father that leads to Heaven.
I once asked a young man what NOT following Jesus was costing him.
His answer: Sanity.
How true that is. Not following Jesus costs you your sanity. You are crazy not to follow Jesus. Mental illness is all rooted in sin. Why is the Western World increasingly dependent upon worthless physicians? Because of sin.
Yes, you and I are sinners. We need Jesus to heal us.
Today is the day.
REPENT.
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