AMEN LORD THANK YOU FOR TRUTH ! Come with me back to Galilee two thousand years ago. This man Jesus is quite a preacher. He is considered by many to be a prophet. Rumor says that He even does wonderful miracles. But wait a minute! What makes Him so special? "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers," men ask. The hometown folks have known Him since He was in diapers. They’ve seen Him play and heard Him cry. They’ve seen Him with sweat-drenched clothes and dirt under His fingernails. Isn’t He just an ordinary guy from an ordinary family? "Isn’t He the son of that carpenter? Isn’t His mother Mary? Come to think of it, didn’t she get pregnant before marriage? Aren’t His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" they ask. "And don’t His sisters still live in town? No doubt about it: this man is as human as anyone; He’s nobody special." The people are right that Jesus is as human as anyone. But they’re wrong to think He’s nobody special! They look so hard at Jesus on the outside that they fail to see who He is on the inside! They look so hard at Jesus as a man, that they don’t see Him as God! Let’s not repeat that same mistake. But let’s not make the opposite mistake either. Let’s not look so hard at Jesus as God that we don’t see Him as a man! The following has been widely circulated, I do not know who the author is, but it states some wonderful things about the Son of man. "Almost twenty centuries ago there was a Man born contrary to the laws of life. His death was contrary to the laws of death. He lived in poverty; He possessed neither wealth nor social prestige. In infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors; in manhood He ruled the course of nature, walked upon the billows as pavements, and hushed the sea to sleep. He had no cornfields or fisheries, but He could spread a table for five thousand and have bread and fish to spare. He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charge for His service. He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the country could not hold all the books that have been written about Him. He never wrote a song, yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters combined. He never founded a college, but all the schools together cannot boast of having as many students. He never marshaled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun; and yet no leader ever had more volunteers who have, under His orders, made more rebels stack arms and surrender without a shot fired. He never practiced psychiatry, yet He has healed more broken hearts than all the doctors far and near. When He died few men mourned. But a black crepe was hung over the sun. Though men trembled not for their sins, the earth beneath them shook under the load. All nature honored Him. Corruption could not get hold of His body. The soil that had been reddened with His blood could not claim His dust. Death could not bind Him. The tomb could not hold Him. Behold what manner of man is this!" One day in an humble home by a dusty street in the village of Nazareth God supernaturally inseminated a young virgin girl by the name of Mary, and Jesus, the only sinless human since Adam, was born into this world. It is hard for us to realize that in that babe was the life-energy that held the universe together. It is difficult for us to realize that as that boy, the firstborn Son of God, grew in stature, the wisdom and the knowledge which was within Him would confound the wisest theologians; that the miracles He was to perform and the things He would declare, as He walked the earth, were to become living words whose vibratory capacity would change the minds of men, transform their lives, and alter the whole course of history and nations. Here is one who is perfect in thought, perfect in word, and perfect in deed. The fact of the matter is, He is the first perfect man who has ever been on this earth! Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Perfect Man. The sons of God who come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ are perfect men, and also the Perfect Man! A lecturer was once talking about man’s imperfection. He wanted to enforce his point, so he asked rhetorically for anybody in his audience who had ever seen a perfect man to lift his hand. No hand went up. Encouraged by this fact, he asked the question the second time. "Has anyone here ever seen a perfect man?" Still no hand was raised. After he had asked a third time, way back in the rear a little timid fellow lifted his hand. Surprised, the lecturer asked, "Have you seen a perfect man?" "I haven’t exactly seen him, but I’ve certainly heard a lot about him," the little fellow replied. "Who in the world is he?" "He’s my wife’s first husband." No doubt he had heard a great deal about him! But if he had met him, I think he would have found out that he was not perfect. The first perfect man who lived on this earth is our Lord Jesus Christ. And wonder of wonders — Jesus was normal, the only normal person who had ever walked this earth! My brethren — what a mystery the young child Jesus must have been to Himself! I suppose He was about thirty years of age before He was at all able to satisfy Himself as to who and what He actually was. The child Jesus must have made the discovery early in His life that He was like no other child in all Israel. "All seek their own," says the scripture, in condemnation of all the children of men. All were walking after their own desires and interests, after their own passions and lusts, after their own thoughts and ambitions. But the child Jesus must have seen and felt within Himself, with a holy wonder, and a divine joy, that, while all around Him, young and old, were doing their own thing, far deeper in His heart than His own things were the things of God, and the things of His neighbor. So early was this the case with Him that, at twelve years of age, He was able to say to His mother, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?"
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:44:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015