Follow the Savior || The Jesus Connection #2

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” – John 15:5-6

What does it mean to remain in Jesus? How can we connect with Jesus to have a strong relationship with him? This is what our new series will be about. In this series, we will examine different statements we believe in as Christians regarding understanding who Christ is. This series is called “The Jesus Connection” because I aim to strengthen your connection to who Jesus is and what believing in him can do for your life.

In this blog, we look at the fact that Christians follow Jesus as Savior and Lord.

John 1:10-13

10           He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him.

11           He came to his own people, and they rejected him.

12           But all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

13           They are reborn – not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

Although Jesus created the world, the people he created didn’t recognize him. When did you know Jesus was around at the world’s creation? We’re taught in Sunday School that God created the world, and there’s no mention of Jesus’ name until the New Testament. Yet, when God created humanity, he said to create them in our image. Who would be the “our” referred to? It’s the Trinity that we know today: God the Father, Jesus the Son, Christ, and Messiah, and the Holy Spirit. All God, but different forms of him. I didn’t want us to get hung up on why I said Jesus created the world.

Now, the people God chose to prepare the rest of the world for the coming of Jesus rejected him. God’s chosen people turned their backs on Jesus. There are prophecies in the Old Testament that describe different moments when this happened. Why would this happen? The people waited 1,500 to 2,000 years for the Messiah to come. They had faith that it would happen when life felt miserable. They had hope that the world would be better when the Messiah came. Two things I’ve noticed to answer the why:

• The Jesus seen by people didn’t align with their personal expectations of who he should’ve been.
• If the people didn’t reject him, as prophesied, would we not have the Resurrection story? Would we not have Jesus defeating death, hell, and the grave? The people’s rejection of Jesus was a part of the plan to remove all barriers that separate God and his chosen people.

All who welcome Jesus as their Lord are reborn spiritually, receiving a new life from God. We practice this today through the various acts of baptism. By believing that we are reborn into this world as Christians free from the bondage of sin, we are given changes within us from the inside out. These changes rearrange our attitudes, desires, and motives from who we once were to who God calls us to be. Being born makes you physically alive and places you in your parents’ family. Being born of God makes you spiritually alive and puts you into God’s family.

I want to return to those two whys I mentioned and how they connect to our spiritual rebirth. What was your reaction when you first attended church or learned about Jesus? Did you think of this being that was mighty, powerful, and could do anything? Did you think of a servant who humbled himself to the lowest service levels to care for his community around him? When we hear about God, who showed himself as Jesus, the human Son of God, our preconceived notions of him are flipped upside down to what we read about in Scripture. We have to believe that being like Jesus, who took the lowest place of servanthood, we should love and care for those around us, all for the glory of God, and overcome the evil in the world. It goes against what we see in society today, but the kingdom of Jesus is going to flip your world upside-down.

Why would I say that the rejection of Jesus was part of God’s plan? God is a good God, so why would he send his only Son to suffer. He cared about us so much that he was willing to not let us be on the cross and suffer like we know Jesus did. Imagine if you had to go through what Jesus went through during Holy Week. It’s scary, deathly, and horrific. None of us would willing to do it like Jesus did. God knew that. It was time for the world to receive the ultimate sacrifice that puts an end to the sinner’s death. This only happens if the people rejected the Savior the glorified days earlier.

Three verses in Romans connected with following Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

Romans 8:15-16, 29

8:15       So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead you have received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  

8:16       For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

8:29       For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

God’s ultimate goal for us is to make us become like Christ. As we do this, we discover who we were created to be and solidify our identity. How does this happen? By studying his life on earth through the teachings of the Gospels, by spending time in prayer, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and doing his world in the world. We received the Holy Spirit to not make us fearful slaves to God. We received it so we could be one with Christ and be adopted into God’s family. Through the Spirit, we have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father.

1 John 3:1

1             See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

As believers, our self-worth comes from God loving and calling us his children. We are his children now, not sometime in the future. Knowing that we are God’s children should encourage us to live like Jesus did. We’re not living up to the standards of the world or the standards of those around us. We are called to live as God wants and to do what God wants first and foremost. That’s hard, especially in a culture where we live up to the standards of our significant others, parents, friends, and the influencers we follow. God-first at all times. That’s what it means to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

In the next part, we’ll discuss how Christians do what God says—at least, they should. Until then, stay blessed!