This email is about Jesus. Things have been changing, in me. My sight is changing.
When I was little, I had an idea of Jesus. He was the One in the pictures, holding the lamb, talking to the little children. Then when I turned 8, I repented of my sins and asked Jesus to come into my heart and save me. And then I did that every single night for a very long time. I wanted to make sure it stuck. Jesus was the one that handed me the ticket to heaven.
As I got older and spent more time reading my Bible and hanging out with other Christians, going to church and youth group, I learned more about Jesus. I learned the stories of His life on earth, His miracles. He was sent because God so loved the world. He saved us.
Then God took me through a place in college that made me wonder about Jesus. I still believed in God. I knew that this gloriously beautiful world didn’t just “happen.” But I had an atheist professor that got me to doubt that Jesus was the Son of God. Alone in my dorm room, I wrestled, tears flowing. I will never forget it. Then, all of a sudden, in the midst of my anguish, a calm came over me. I heard from the Lord, in my heart, “You will never have proof that Jesus is the Son of God. You can believe it or not believe it. It is still true.” And suddenly I knew. I knew if for a fact! I no longer had any doubt at all. My tears became tears of joy. I have never doubted Jesus’ Lordship since that day.
Even so, it has been easier for me to focus on God the Father. I wanted to know God. As the deer pants after the water brooke, so my soul longed for God. All of my reaching and running and falling and getting back up, it all came around to knowing God more. How could I know Him better? How could I “know Him even as I am also known”?
Then recently, I realized something. God opened my eyes to the truth that was pretty obvious all along. I just couldn’t really see it till recently. I could recite the verses probably, but I couldn’t “see” it.
In John 14, Jesus tells His disciples:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.” (So obvious! I’ve read it or heard it a thousand times.)
But Philip and I must be a lot alike. Jesus tells them this and Philip responds with: “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
Let’s translate that into “me” talk. “Jesus, yes, you are totally cool, but you don’t quite cut it. It will be enough for me if you just show me Your Father.”
Jesus has gotta be shaking His head at this point. (Did you not hear what I JUST told you?????) Thank God that Jesus is patient!
Jesus responds to Philip’s request: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”
It only took me 58 years to really hear those words. Jesus and God are One. To know Jesus IS to know the Father. I think a similar thing happened to Peter, James and John when Jesus took them up the mountain in Matthew 17.
“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.”
They went from seeing Jesus to SEEING JESUS for Who He really was.
I am now reading Hebrews. If you want to get to know Jesus better, I highly recommend the book of Hebrews.
May we all look to Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
I love you all!