Jesus as a Man

Belfrey Youth are spending Tuesdays leading up to Christmas looking at the book of John as we explore a series titled 'Just Jesus'. As a team, we've recognised that if young people are going to be transformed by the life of Jesus, we need to encourage a culture of picking up the Bible, reading it, discovering it, understanding it and sharing it. This is why over the summer period we put out a plea for people to sponsor Youth Bibles to be kept at our youth & children's work centre, Basement Central. At a mere cost of £8.00 each we were able to purchase 17 - and it's still not too late to sponsor one! Do email me if you'd like to lee.kirkby@belfrey.org

Last night at youth, I attempted to shed some light on why Jesus became a man. As I was reading and preparing, I was encapsulated even more by this man Jesus. To be fair, some do say he could have just been someone who lived 2000 years ago and caused a bit of a fuss for the 33 years he lived on earth. But, when we read the scriptures, discover and understand them, each book, chapter and verse is pointing towards this man Jesus as being God. Here are a couple of things that took my attention: 

Jesus enters his own creation...

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Genesis 1:1-2

God spoke and galaxies flung into being, stars lit up the night sky and planets started orbiting their suns. God spoke and the waters and land were filled with plants, creatures both great and small. God spoke again and so man and woman were created, carefully designed so that we could think, speak and love. God is the author of all creation. His voice was like the putting of pen to paper when he created it all. But look, the author of all creation then comes as a human as well (see John 1:14) "The Word became flesh." During the exodus God made his dwelling place in the tabernacle tent which when translated means 'dwelling place'. God is literally pitching his tent among us now through this man Jesus. God entered his own creation, as a mere humble human, faced with all the inevitabilities of life including death. Jesus who calls himself "light of the world" the same light that was present at the very beginning of time (referred to in Genesis 1:2)  was prepared to come as one of us because he loves us so much. Our challenge is to pitch God's dwelling where he is not yet known. 

Jesus came to bless all people...

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

God not only invites us to receive the gift of salvation, but to share it with others too. Last night I used a candle analogy to demonstrate that we do not need to be fearful of spreading the good news. In a darkened room take one candle of any size and begin to light others from it. No matter how many more you light from it, the original will never lose its brightness. Instead, what will happen is the whole place will get lighter and lighter. In the same way, when we share the news of Jesus his light will remain just as bright in us and will brighten other lives too.

Last week I had my hair cut. It was my day off. When asked by the polite barber what I did for a living I took the easy option of saying that I was a youth worker. I was tired and it was wet and I just wanted to get back home to relax. He then pursued to ask where I worked. I thought he really is interested. A little voice in my head said "this is your chance to tell him about Jesus". I failed. What was it? Was I embarrassed? Couldn't I be bothered? Didn't I take what Jesus had done for me seriously enough? I want my family to know Jesus, my mum, dad and sister, but how will they if I duck out of every opportunity I'm faced with? 

  

Jesus came to offer us the gift of eternity. John 1:12 says "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God..." Jesus came as a gift with authority to make us his children. All we need to do is either accept the tragedy of rejecting this gift, or be blessed by receiving him. By accepting that Jesus died on the cross for us, we all share the same DNA of Christ himself. It is that simple. So why not share Him with others?