WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DO YOU HAVE WITH JESUS?
Sakkie Parsons
Today, I would like to share with you a conversation I had some time ago with a few people when we were talking about Jesus.
Following something someone in the group said, I started talking with them about Jesus. As sometimes happens when I speak to people about Jesus and His great love for us, certain wonderful things that Jesus has done for me in my life flash through my mind. Sometimes, and I feel a little embarrassed when this happens, I become quite emotional while talking to people about Jesus. That happened on that particular day too. When someone made a remark about it, I simply went into a higher gear with even greater enthusiasm!
So, I would now like to share with you, out of that wonderful feeling in my heart, what I shared with them.
I use the example of a very well-known person whom many people have heard of – for example, a well-known singer, a famous film star, or a political figure whom millions of people know about, and most of them might even be able to tell you a thing or two about what they know about him.
A very small number of those millions of people actually knew him.
I am referring, as an example, to people who listened to his performances or speeches and perhaps even met him and, yes, even exchanged a few words with him.
However, a much, much smaller portion of those millions of people I have just mentioned had a personal, friendly, intimate and/or loving relationship with him.
And here I will once again use South Africa as an example to illustrate what I am saying, because it is the example I know best, as I am right in the midst of this community.
Approximately 80% of people in South Africa – there are opinion polls that put the figure as high as 85% – will tell you that they are Christians, and they all know about Jesus. But that is more or less where it ends. The proof of what I have just said is that, according to the latest figure I know of, which is quite an old figure, we are one of the countries with the highest crime rates per 100,000 people in the world.
They can tell you that the Bible speaks about Jesus, and most of them, though not all, can even tell you where He was born.
An even much smaller portion of those 80/85% of people in South Africa know Him well enough to, for example, confidently testify about Him to other people, or even have the desire to do so.
Even though they sit Sunday after Sunday in gatherings where He is spoken about, and where He Himself comes to them, speaks to them and pleads with them to begin a loving friendship relationship with Him, so that He can save them from hell.
Then, however, there is a group who, in comparison with the 80/85% of people I have told you about, make up a very, very small percentage of people for whom Jesus is their Mighty God, their Everlasting Father, their Prince of Peace and their Friend.
A very, very small percentage of people who love to talk about Him.
Who become excited when they have the opportunity to talk to people about Him.
Who, because of their love for Him, can become emotional when talking to people about Him.
I ask you, if you profess to be a Christian, to examine yourself today and ask yourself:
“Who is Jesus Christ really to me?”
This Jesus who was hung on a cross after He had been treated so terribly, even before they crucified Him, that, according to the testimony as I understand it from what I find in the Bible, He was the first of those who were crucified that day to die.
Also, keep in mind that it was not the nails that held Him to the cross. It was His love for you and for me, and because He did not want to see you or me in hell, that, as it were, kept Him nailed to that cross.
Our Lord’s holy, precious Word gives us a little insight in a few places into what His truly great Love for you and me caused Him to endure. I am sharing just one of these examples with you, and I quote it from Isaiah 53:1–9:
ISAIAH 53:1–9
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD’s arm been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their faces; and we didn’t respect him.
4 Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.
(He could, for example, simply have spoken a word, and they, His enemies, would no longer have existed.)
8 He was taken away by oppression and judgment. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
(Who among His people realized that He was being put to death for their sins – and for yours and mine? That He was actually being punished in their place – and in yours and mine?)
9 They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
He did nothing wrong and never deceived anyone. Yet He was buried like a criminal and laid in a rich man’s tomb. This also happened so that you and I can know exactly who is being spoken about here. So that you and I can live forever if we accept Him as our Redeemer and Saviour.
Can I just remind you once again of Who our Lord’s Holy Word is speaking about in what you have just read?
ISAIAH 9:6 For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
ISAIAH 9:7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of Armies will perform this.
And further still, I quote::
The Word … was God Himself!
JOHN 1:1–5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it!
JOHN 1:14 The Word (as you have read, who is God Himself) became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
(Completely God and completely man, in a way that only Almighty God Himself could accomplish.)
You know,
It does not matter by which name of our Lord you may have heard Him called. According to our Lord’s Holy Word, there is absolutely no name greater, or more powerful, than His wonderful Name, Jesus Christ.
PHILIPPIANS 2:9-10 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth,
ACTS 4:12 There is salvation in no one else, for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, by which we must be saved. (Jesus alone.)
Do you know what Jesus Christ is saying to you again today, you who are reading this?
You have read this far because Jesus wants to tell you again today that He does not want you merely to know about Him.
He does not want you merely to know Him, and therefore sometimes attend church services and sing along with other people about Him and to Him, and only occasionally talk about Him when you are with other people who also talk about Him.
He does not want you merely to talk to Him about the things in your life that are important to you.
He wants a loving relationship with you.
That kind of relationship that can fill you with excitement when you think about Him.
That kind of relationship that gives you such a wonderful feeling when you talk to someone about Him.
Yes, that kind of relationship that sometimes brings tears to your eyes when you think and remember what He has already done for you.
In His Word, He tells us that He wants to be your Friend:
Yes, He is your Mighty God, and He is your Everlasting Father, but He wants such an intimate relationship with you that you also see Him and experience Him as your Friend.
JOHN 15:13–15 – Jesus says:
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
I want to ask you something very sincerely. In fact, I am pleading with you –
Work on this, because this is first and foremost what Jesus wants. And also because it is so wonderful to reach that place where you can look to our Lord and say to Him, with that wonderful, great love in your heart:
“My God, my Father and my Friend.”
However, like all loving relationships, this is not something that simply happens, like falling in love. Love is not an emotion. Love, including your love and my love for our Lord, is an action that must be continually worked at in order to experience the wonderful emotion that can be found in it.
You have a choice in your Christian faith. You can remain at that place where you actually only know about Jesus.
You may even have progressed further. You know Jesus. You know about many of the things He expects of you, and you even do some of them. Yes, you know of occasions at gatherings you have attended when He also came and spoke to you.
You may even go so far as to testify that Jesus has come and spoken to you at almost every gathering you have attended, and yet you know deep down in your heart that you do not really have a wonderful intimate friendship with Him.
I ask you. No, I plead with you: work towards developing such great love for Him in your heart that you can say to Him:
“You are truly real to me. Jesus, my Lord and my God. I can and want to talk about You. When I talk about You, my heart can be filled with joy. Because of my love for You, I can become wonderfully emotional when talking about You.”
Even knowing Jesus will not keep you out of hell.
The people who crucified Jesus, as well as Judas, His betrayer, knew about Him and, yes, knew Him. And according to the testimony of the Word available to us, Judas and most of them went to hell.
What will cause someone to end up in hell is arriving on the other side of the grave without Jesus:
JOHN 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
JOHN 3:16–18
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
17 For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
18 He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
I will close with words that Jesus spoke under oath and had recorded for us. So you can know that they are as true as what you are reading right now:
JOHN 5:24 “Most certainly (this is an oath) I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed (you are already assured of this if you make it part of your life here on earth) out of death into life.“
Greetings,
Sakkie