Your Own Personal Jesus

Who is Jesus?
Sure, we all know that Jesus is this great guy, who lived two thousand years ago, was a teacher, a healer, a prophet, that he was crucified, was risen from the dead and—oh yeah—he’s God too. But let’s face it, that was two thousand years ago—what has he done for me lately? Who is he to us right now, today? Let’s listen to what some have to say about their experiences of Jesus:

The Distant Authority Jesus
“Look, we all are under authority, and if we’re not, then we should be. Jesus is my ultimate authority, but he speaks directly through the authority who is directly over me. As long as I obey that authority, I’m obeying Jesus. If that authority tells me something against what Jesus says—who cares? That authority IS Jesus, for me. As long as I obey him, I’m okay.”

The Moral Teacher Jesus
“Jesus is, like, my moral guru. He’s the ultimate teacher, and he guides me everyday. He keeps me calm, so I don’t cause friction or difficulties for anyone. Jesus is just all about love and peace. What’s that? He talked to some guys called Pharisees? I didn’t know that. Still, Jesus is just totally cool.”

The Demi-god Jesus
“Jesus is always there for me. We’ve got a deal—I’ll praise him every Sunday and just sing and praise my heart out for him. Then, if I get any terrible discomfort—like, my car breaks down—then I can ask Jesus and he takes care of me. What do I do for him? Well, I praise him a lot—didn’t you hear me?”

The Doctrinal Jesus
“I am a firm believer in the orthodox Christian creed. Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, he was crucified, buried and on the third day rose again for my sins. I go to church every Sunday to hear about it. And the rest of my life is pretty much my own. How do I live my life? Well, I try not to lie or cheat on my wife. I’m a pretty good person. But we were talking about Jesus, weren’t we?”

The Institutional Jesus
“I’m really involved in the church, and I just see Jesus there everyday. Every program we have is led by Jesus and we know that Jesus is constantly with us. How do we know? Well, Jesus said where two or three are gathered, and we’ve got a lot of people gathered and in agreement. So Jesus must be here right with us, no matter what we do, right?”

The Friendship Jesus
“Jesus is my best friend. There’s no one like Him. He’s always with me and I know he’s right there. He comforts me when I’m down, and he helps me out when I’ve got problems. He’s really a great guy. My Lord? Well, I wouldn’t call him my Lord—he’s my bud.”

The Real Jesus
There is nothing wrong with the Jesus’ portrayed above, generally. Each one seems really different, but they are each a general reflection of who Jesus is. The problem is that none of these Jesus’ above reflects the relationship Jesus says he wants us to have with him. Jesus is not just the Jesus we might experience, but he is the Jesus of the Bible, as portrayed by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If our personal Jesus is different than the Jesus who we read about there, then we don’t have the real Jesus, we just have a copy.

The real Jesus invites us to join him and his troop. There is only one requirement—and that is that we accept Him as Lord. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me let him deny himself… and follow me.” It is not enough that we have Jesus at arms length—Jesus must be a part of who we are, directing us, guiding us to do what He wants, not what we want. In Jesus, our very selves are denied so that Jesus can take over. What does it mean to have Jesus as our Lord?

Jesus is our teacher
“There is only one teacher and you are all brothers.” Matthew 23:8
Jesus is the only true teacher, because he alone knows the truth. Jesus will tell us what really is reality, even if part of reality we can’t see yet. Jesus has experienced both this world and the spirit world, and is ready to explain them both to us. Jesus also tells us how to live—what is good and what is bad. Not only does he explain it, but he lives it out, providing us with an example of how to live. So as our Lord, he asks us to place him as our teacher above all other teachers, and put all other teachings—whether moral or otherwise— against his standard. If they aren’t compatible with his teaching, then we reject it.

Jesus is our master
“You call me teacher and master, and so I am.” John 13:13
But Jesus is not simply a teacher—he also is a master. He has direct authority over those who call him Lord. This means that Jesus has the last say over what we do. Jesus is our master, so we listen to him directly, through the Scripture and through the Spirit of God. We don’t have to hear someone else tell us what Jesus says. Jesus talks to us directly. But we need to constantly read the gospels so we can know what Jesus is saying to us.

Jesus is our deliverer
“I came to seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:10
Jesus saw us in our suffering and took pity on us. He saw that we were miserable and having difficulties with everyone around us, and we weren’t at peace in our lives. So he delivered us out of what was causing us to suffer. The whole world system is a system of suffering, and he delivered us from that. But not only that, he helps us daily to escape suffering. This doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t suffer—Jesus promised that we would—but we can have confidence that He can and will deliver us, and so we trust in him and seek him to do this.

Jesus is our king
“I am a king, for this I have been born… My kingdom is not of this world.”—John 19:36-37
Ultimately, when we say that Jesus is our Lord, we are saying that he is our King. Jesus is the king of our nation—called the kingdom of God—and we are the citizens of that nation forever. Our main allegiance is not to the country we reside in, but the country that currently resides in heaven. Jesus told everyone who is in his kingdom to tell others about his Lordship so that more and more people would join God’s kingdom—making it bigger! Soon Jesus will be coming back to earth—perhaps today—to rule the earth and he is preparing to judge everyone. We will all be judged—not on whether we called him Lord, but on whether we ACTED like it.

So we need to be ready. We must not just prepare ourselves with our “personal Jesus,” but we need to be ready to meet the REAL Jesus—real soon!