What Does Jesus Look Like?

WHAT DOES JESUS LOOK LIKE?

Go ahead and argue about its origins. A widespread polio vaccine grown in monkeys in the 1950's was involved. We know it came from monkeys and was spread disproportionately by gay men in North America, but it originated and was spread in Africa by heterosexual sex. That conversation is now moot and self righteous on some level. Now listen to the situation today.
7000 Africans die every day of AIDS. Now compare that with the 1500 total people that died in New Orleans because of Katrina. Compare that with the 150,000 people that died in the tsunami. The number of people that die of AIDS in Africa in one month eclipses that number. The 200,000 monthly AIDS deaths in Africa leave some 100,000 orphans behind. Some are infected and some are not. Many Africans believe that having sex with a virgin will cure you and so there are hundreds of thousands of rapes of girls all the way down to 8 years old take place every year. Not only does that traumatize the girl, it usually infects her.
The physical death of an AIDS infected person is one of the most excruciating anyone can imagine. In Africa most AIDS infected persons are rejected by their families due to superstitions, as a matter of fact most Africans refer to them as "sick people" rather than admitting what they have. They die alone and in unbelievable pain.
Now aside from the indescribable horror of their physical deaths, the Spiritual implications are mind boggling. 7000 people die and go to a Christless eternity every day. Since their families abandon them, they are wide open to someone coming to help them. The government is so overwhelmed with the disease that they don't care if you preach Popeye to them as long as you give them water, sheets, and general help. It is the largest and most wide open mission field in history. Most are not Muslim and they have Bibles in their language. The only segment of the body of Christ that is equipped to reach them is the American evangelical church. We have the people, we have the money, we have the transportation, and basically God has made us the stewards of His resources to use for His kingdom. The wealth we have is for His use not ours.
If the American church stopped spending the billions on new buildings, individually lived well below their means, and made reaching these helpless people the major focus of their calling we might be able to "rescue the perishing". We are content with conferences, books, tapes, buildings, houses, clothes, restaurants, entertainment, Christian cruises, and many other cultural entrapments. Even while we speak out against the doctrinal falling away in its many forms we must open our eyes to the Spiritual holocaust. Nehemiah's workers carried both a hammer and a sword.
Now I wonder, what will we tell Jesus when He asks us "Why did you lay up for yourselves the treasure I specifically told you not to?". "How often did you weep for the perishing?" Why did you peruse the internet on a 50 to 1 to prayer ratio?" "Why did you let the unsaved rock stars show more compassion?" "Where were the all night prayer meetings to bring down my power?" "Why did you cry at seeing portrayals of my Son's death but it did not move you to sacrificial acts of ministry?" "Why did you read this article and still do nothing?"

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I have reprinted this from a post of five years ago. Why? Because I feel it may give some perspective on just how insulated we are here in the west. And it isn’t just the AIDs epidemic in Africa, but there are all kinds of hardships and persecutions occurring all over the world. And also right here in America. Children go hungry; people suffer with all kinds of diseases; people are very lonely; girls cut themselves because they feel so worthless; and many other human tragedies are rampant, to say nothing of people being lost and headed for a lost eternity.

But we so easily lose perspective, unknowingly and willingly. We live a very narcissistic life which is consumed with our own situation and our own future prospects. Our deception here in the west is not only doctrinal, but we are our own deception. Us, our lives, our interests, our plans, our ambitions, these are ultimately what consumes us and blinds us to His life, His interests, His plans, His concerns, and His eternal redemptive commission. But faced with that kind of spiritual tension, the church has opted to change God instead of seeking God.

And that is exactly what we have today, a different God with a different gospel which has all the trappings of the western culture but which are referred to as “blessings” by the church. And not only do we applaud such a doctrinal and practical construct, we wallow in it. It is an amazing feat to take God’s Word and interpret it by molding it into an American guide to success with a little Jesus sprinkled in for luck. Just amazing.

While the world suffers, western believers relish all the accoutrements of a fallen culture, and all the while proclaiming a belief in eternal life, at least doctrinally. And while proclaiming a belief that every soul spends eternity in one of two places, we lavish ourselves with material goods and spend a pittance on missions, to say nothing of the paltry words spoken personally to lost sinners. But asked if Jesus is Lord we answer in the affirmative without realizing the implications and the demands of such a statement. And millions of believers will send money to television preachers in hopes of getting what they want. Again, amazing.

American believers will get up early and stand in line to cast a vote for an unbeliever, but will they rise early and help with a soup kitchen or spend an hour in a prayer chamber? And if God asked you to sell all and get ready to spend the rest of your life as a foreign missionary, would you hesitate? If so, you have way too much stuff and not enough Jesus. We love our prophetic conferences and we love to play connect the prophetic dots leading to the Lord’s return, but still we build bigger barns to save up our money. But just today thousands upon thousands of Americans had their world collapse when they were told their child or their spouse had an incurable disease. And just today some mother of two or three learned her husband was leaving her for someone else. And just today policemen knocked on a door to inform someone that their loved one had been killed in an accident.

And against the backdrop of those tragedies the western church shuffles back and forth to and from a mortgaged building and feeling as if they have fulfilled their spiritual obligation. And if the Spirit would send a written communication from heaven to explain God’s will for His people, would we be shocked by how different it is than that which we now practice?

Well He has sent such a document, only we have made it a doctrinal fortress and not a cross mold into which we must be poured.

What does Jesus look like?

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Jesus looks like those in need.