Was Jesus a good Example?

June 26, 2009 // By: // 5 Comments

Looking with genuine and pure love at the lowest members of His society Jesus “did good to all people”.  To the shame-laden hooker, He was kind and affectionate, pronouncing her redemption.  To the sick and isolated, He entered their world, spilled over onto them the compassion overflowing from His heart and healed their bodies, as well as their view of themselves.  To the outwardly religious but inwardly self-sufficient, He offered a firm and unwavering mirror of the death in which they were wallowing.

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He maintained all the statutes of God, while in a non-rebellious way, He opposed the rules that men had invented to control men.  He lived the fullness of the life He was created for and included in His circle of friends, imperfect, sometimes hypocritical men and women.  Some were just trying as best they could to understand and serve God, others had hidden agendas in their hearts.  Jesus called them all friends.

Without fear He stepped into difficult circumstances to rescue those who could not help themselves, whether from blindness, or from spiritual abuse.  When it was the right thing to do, He placed His body in between us and the lethal weapon being fired at us from the kingdom of darkness.  He sacrificed Himself for people who might not even know it, much less appreciate it.

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Yes, He was  God-walking-around and He was an amazing man.  I cannot prove this by reading The Book, but I always picture Him being so fully engaged and present in every moment, that it called the people around Him to be equally present.  I picture Him making eye contact that was at once piercing, somewhat unnerving, and deeply inviting.  He was God-on-earth.

Here is the piece of it all that staggers me.  He did none of these things in order to be an example to us.  Don’t hear me wrongly, His example is, alone, the one we can always look to.   My point is that none of His actions were for the purpose of  being an example.  This is the best part; He did everything He did because it is the Truth about God. He did what He did because He was being Himself, and giving us a peek into what it might be like to have lunch with the Universe-speaking-God.

Don’t be afraid.  Come to Him with all of your shame.  Approach Him in spite of your hesitations.  Don’t pretend you have it all figured out.  In fact, bring Him the worst part of you.  He knows it anyway, loves you dearly, and knows exactly what to do to help.  Jesus was not trying to be a good example, He was living out the true nature of His Dad.  Let him be your Dad too.