To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

 

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.  Isaiah 53:2-3 (NIV)

 

The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; (Psalm 118:22 NIV)

 

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. (Matthew 26:3-4 NIV)

 

John 12:37-43 NIV

 

Acts 4:1-12 NIV

 

About seven hundred years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah wrote a description of how Jesus’ life would be here on earth.  Isaiah foretold that Jesus would be rejected by His own people… that the very ones He came to save would turn their backs on Him.

 

Why would the Jewish people do that?  Why would they reject their long-awaited Messiah?  Why do the majority of them still do that until this day?  Because they are normal people. 

 

At the time of Jesus’ birth, the Jews were among the most despised people on earth.  They suffered oppression, slavery, torture, and death just because of who they were.  Their religion provided ample opportunity for atonement for sin through the blood sacrifice of animals and other rituals.  They saw no real need to be saved from their sins.  What they wanted to be saved from was their enemies.  When they read the prophecies about the Messiah, they concentrated on the ones that foretold a triumphal King, a Savior who would deliver them from the oppression and slavery that had dominated their history.  When Jesus came along, they paid no attention to the prophecies that told of His first visit to earth as the humble shepherd, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.  To them, He seemed to be nothing more than a good Rabbi, possibly another prophet.  That’s it.  Nothing at all like what they were expecting.

 

You and I are no different.  We have our salvation experience and expect to wake up the next morning completely different.  But when we go look in the bathroom mirror, the same bloodshot eyes with bags under them look back!  Our life doesn’t suddenly change.  We still have bills to pay and work to do and children to raise.  We still have all the same problems we had the day before… only now, they seem more pronounced.  Now it is much more obvious what an evil life we were living before.  Now we have to figure out how to deal with life from a Christian viewpoint.  The instant cure we were looking for doesn’t happen. 

 

So what do we do?  Do we drop back into familiar territory, finding sin almost comforting when compared to the challenge of living a life for Jesus?  Or do we respond to the prodding of the Holy Spirit who now dwells within us, opening ourselves up to His teaching and guidance and comfort, willingly allowing Him to begin molding us into the person Jesus wants us to be?

 

Sadly, far too many people follow the road of the Jews… refusing salvation because it looks too difficult.  Many reject Him because He’s just not what they’re expecting.  They don’t see Him hitting those who are saved with a spiritual "insta-cure," so they turn away, following the easier, more familiar path of the world.  Forgetting (or ignoring) the fact that Jesus’ salvation is eternal, and the abundant life He promised can begin right here and now, they turn to self-help books and psychologists rather than to the Word of God.

 

Is Jesus falling short of your expectations?  Have you, like the Jews, rejected Him because He’s not who you expected Him to be?  Perhaps that’s because you’re expecting the wrong thing.  If you will allow Him to be all He can be for you in your life, He’ll go far beyond what you could ever imagine.  If you’ll stop limiting Him, the results will be limitless!