Following Judah's Lion

Who is Jesus

and

Who Are His Followers?

Who is this man named Jesus? The word “Christ” means “anointed one” and is a description rather than part of His given earthly name. Even those who deny Him acknowledge His superior teaching abilities. And in the end He was put to death because He claimed to be the Son of God and thereby threatened the power of the religious hierarchy. And even though the Jews hated their Roman oppressors, they gladly used them to crucify this man named Jesus.

But the Scriptures are clear. This man named Jesus was born in Bethlehem to a young girl named Mary. However, this young girl was also a virgin. So right at the start there was a problem for the world. Who can be born of a virgin? Of course there are counterfeits who claim to have been born from a virgin, but the Old Testament Scriptures had foretold of this virgin born child. But today, in this enlightened age of technology and human analysis, this kind of truth is viewed as superstition and archaic religious tradition.

But as hard as society attempted to discredit and even expunge this Person from the world’s knowledge and religion altogether, still He remains a central figure among billions. But His historical remembrance as a man, even with communicative skills, falls infinitely short of who He was and is. Jesus of Nazareth was the Creator God in human form. Anything less than that is a caricature that removes the power of His mission and renders Him nothing more than a religious curiosity. This is what the cults, and what the liberal denominations, and what the health and wealth movements, and what the emergent movement continues to do. They change the Person and nature and even the mission of the Risen Christ.

But the Word, the Second person of the revealed Trinity, must never be minimized or diluted or downgraded. He is the only and exclusive hope for all mankind and all eternity rests upon His finished work upon the cross and inside the now empty tomb. And as the world, and sadly the church as well, become accustomed to sin and blind to its effects, the necessity of Christ’s redemption becomes less a necessity, to say nothing of a desperate necessity, and more of some placid moral alteration or some nationalistic mirage that claims to have been created by this Jesus. And what a diabolical spectacle to see what some have done to the glory of God’s Risen Son!

When Jesus Himself proclaimed that “No man comes to the Father but by Me,” He was establishing a truth that is in direct conflict with the pluralistic culture that adapts to accommodate all religious thoughts about ways to achieve post mortem nirvana. That statement was either a self righteous delusion, or it was the eternal truth upon which all eternity stands. This Jesus is also incongruent with the many different pictures of Jesus portrayed by all the different religious streams. The True and Living Jesus stands alone as the One and Only Redeemer. All others are counterfeits and eternally poisonous to a lost sinner’s soul.

But who are the followers of the authentic and glorious Christ? Some would claim that an orthodox doctrinal statement cements you as a living follower of Christ. Others would suggest that feeding the poor identifies one as a follower of Jesus the Christ. Others claim that being pro-life or pro-traditional marriage punches your Christ follower’s card. But I reject all those definitions as well as any and all manifestations that can be captured in some carefully worded depiction.

The true follower of Christ is one who has indeed been born again by simple and yet profound faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. But this follower is also one whose heart continues to be malleable and broken before His Redeemer, and he is cognizant about his own shortcomings. He strives to esteem others before himself, but often fails. The Christ follower is always in a spiritual classroom, and he genuinely rejects all personal accolades about himself. He is deeply aware of his standing upon God’s grace, and he strives to cultivate heartfelt humility and reflect it in a way that would draw attention to Christ and not his own humility. A superior challenge to be sure.

The follower of Jesus spreads the message of His gospel, and he is concerned with the eternal destiny of the souls he lives among, as well as the souls to which he helps send others. He wraps his gospel message in a package of love, service, and personal sacrifice. To him, there is no higher calling than being Jesus to this lost world. The cares of this world call out to him, but he prayerfully rejects their demands and rests fully in Christ and the things of eternal value. The heart of a true follower of Christ is a profound paradox. He is always rejoicing in Christ and His eternal love and salvation, but his heart is always broken for the souls of others. He is always grateful for the progress he has made in his spiritual journey, but he grieves over his shortcomings and many stumblings.

A follower of Jesus has a Biblically based theology, but he is not a disciple of a theology. He follows the Living Christ in ways that are demonstrably different than the average cultural pilgrim, and in fact, his motives are detached from the usual pursuits of money, pleasure, and self indulgence. But even though his lifestyle is dissimilar from the earth dwellers he lives among, his life is not a set of legalistic rules that are designed to draw attention to his own distinctive lifestyle and cultivate self righteousness. He lives his life to draw attention to the Person and work of Jesus Christ. And the denial of self is his daily challenge which is only achieved when that miscreant named “self” dies.

The follower of Jesus takes no pride in his orthodox doctrine, in fact, he knows he has come to truth completely by the grace of God through the Spirit of God. And when he comes across people who are deceived, he allows this admonition to filter his correction:

II Tim.2:24-26 - And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

And when he sees a professing believer stumble, he corrects him with a heart for restoration and remembers these words:

Gal.6:1-3 - Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.

And in perhaps the greatest single sentence of discipleship, the follower of Jesus strives daily to achieve this:

Jn.3:30 - He must increase, but I must decrease.

But let us be honest, all these verses are pursuits whose destination remains in the life to come. But if we lose our passion for being a living sacrifice for Him, we have lost our salt and light and are just sitting at the bus station waiting for heaven as we watch millions perish. God forbid.