Everybody has their ideal Jesus, and they tend to congregate with those of like mind.
Though the church that you attend probably has a Biblical emphasis on worship and fellowship, you will find others that emphasis one specific “virtue” to the exclusion of all else. Suffice it to say that various churches use Jesus to promote their health products, charity funds, addiction groups, educational institutions, and personal development programmes—to name but a few things
And it is true that the Jesus of the Bible did indeed heal the sick, care for the poor, call men to self-control, educate everyone who would listen, and developed people to their full potential—to name but a few things.
But as much as Jesus met the daily needs of people, his goal was the saving of the soul
I have heard people say as they have left a congregation, “I have come to the wrong church.” I have always wondered if it wasn’t so much the wrong church, but the wrong Jesus.
Such people have enjoyed all the blessings until they have been expected to be one. Just as Jesus moves us on from milk to meat, he moves us on from beneficiary to benefactor. The mission of the real Jesus of the New Testament church is summed up in his words:
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Given that Jesus is the Eternal God, it begs the question: “Why would a Holy God bother to suffer such ignominies for the crucifixion for the ungrateful and wicked.
Only the motive of “divine love” can explain Jesus’ mission of mercy.
“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 John 4:9NLT).
John Staiger