The message that Jesus Preached (Part 1)
If we look at the life of Jesus as recorded
in the bible, His message and his ministry was not focused on “thou shall not
sin.” It had elements of that, but the primary message that Jesus came to give
us was to tell us the truth about how this world is setup. His primary message
was telling us the truth of how this world works, and who are the players in
it.
Let me explain what I mean, in life as we
grow, through our experiences, we develop a map of how this world functions.
Some are experiential, such as gravity, from young we know that if we jump, we
are not going to fly off, because gravity is pulling on us. Others are not
experiential, but more theoretical, ie that on the moon, gravity is about 1/6
of Earth pull. We have no way of experiencing that, but we take it for granted
that scientists who tells us this, and has done the math, and what they tell us
is most probably true, yet even them have no “experienced” this. And its
theoretical. (not that the moons gravity has much impact on our everyday life.)
So from our childhood, we have learned that the world has certain rules and
certain laws that govern it, and it creates a mental map of how this world
works. Apart from the physical laws, we also have a map in our mind as to how
this rules and laws works socially. Ie
If you kill someone you go to jail. These mental maps is actually “belief
systems” which we built, and we navigate ourselves in this world via our
understanding of such construct and hence constraints.
Like in today, back in the days of Jesus,
the majority of the social rules are defined by people, you kill someone and
you go to jail, This is a rule set by people. back then and in some places in
the world today it is still an eye for an eye, and whilst as a global society,
there are places where these rules has drastically improved, there are still
places where these rules are set that benefits some and abuses others. But in
general, if you are the common people, the same struggles that the people in
Jesus days was under, we are still under, and we are dealing with the same kind
of issues. We still need to eat, a lack of heath still deliberates us, death is
still inevitable, work still gets you rewards, the influential has the power to
abuse and uplift others, hope, greed, love, fear and justice are all fabrics of
our society.
So what did Jesus came to do?
He was showing us the reality of a different part of our world. This part of
the world people rarely experiences as it’s a different dimension to the physical
world that we currently experiences. But in order to access this part of the world,
we need to change our belief system so that “our map” in our mind can be
updated to perceive the existence of this dimension, and ultimately understands
that as we choose to operate in this dimension, we can trumps and over shadows
the current set of rules that we are living in. What Jesus is saying is not a
different and separated world, but it is one and the same world. The only
difference is, people don’t know it exists, and don’t know how to access it, because
we do not understand the rules.
God is our Father
So the basics of understanding how this
world works is. We need to understand that this world has not always been here,
it was created. Jesus didn’t specifically say this, because the Israeli had
already an understanding that God existed prior, and God created this place,
because in history passed, there has been people that interacted with God,
whilst they are few and far in between, those interaction happened. But the
true relationship between God and man, was not understood. And the very first
and biggest revelation that Jesus came to show us was. “God is your father”.
This is so revolutionary, as people related to God as the “Great I am”, but
he is a far and distant figure that doesn’t have much to do with people. he is
just God who created things, and has set some rules, but he is out there and we
are down here. And there is as much relationship between an ant and a human.
But Jesus came to tell us, He is our father!
Think of this, the relationship between man
and the creator of the universe is one of son and father. You may think that’s not true!? I have a father
and mother, and my father is no God! Yes this is what we have experienced in
the physical, and we are born in the biological, by biological parents, but in
the spirit, GOD is our father! DWELL ON THIS A LITTLE! the creator of
the universe is your father. The understanding of this changes everything. God
is our father, he loves us, and takes care of us! Secondly, he is our father,
which means we inherited his image, and as such, his character, his abilities,
and his dominion. This is so far from our current experience that we totally
discount this as even remotely possible or true. But the bible says that Jesus is
the first born of many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8:29). This is what Jesus
came to show us. The position as sons of God, and the relationship of men as
sons of God to the father.
How did Jesus demonstrate how we are to be as
sons God, He showed the disciples of who God is by practical examples. He taught
on how the father thinks, that if we as children asks for bread, he is not
going to give us stones, ask for fish he is not going to give us snakes. He
then taught on how the father rules, it is not one where he Lords over one
another, but one where he serves and give himself for his people.
