getting to know jesus

• The very first step to having a relationship with anyone, let alone the Lord, is to know them. If you say you have a relationship with someone but you don’t really know them, is that even a relationship at all? So, let’s get to know Jesus! The Bible has a whole lot to say about Jesus (and some super confusing stuff in Revelation, but we won’t get there just yet!) and his character. Let’s start with some of His more “simple” character traits and then get into the ones with more complexity:

  • Hebrews 13:8 - “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

    • This is one of the most encouraging things that the Bible has to say about Jesus, and the first thing that I want you to know. When everything in your life is changing and people are not being reliable, you can always, and I mean ALWAYS rely on Jesus because He never changes. And yes, that means that His kindness and compassion and mercy will never fade, but it also means that the Jesus you read about in the Bible is the same Jesus you can have a relationship with today. The Jesus that performs miracles and heals people and came to this world to die for us because of how much He loves us. This also means that no matter what you have done, Jesus is going to show the same mercy as He did before you messed up. Jesus is the constant in your life, even when nothing else is.

  • John 8:12 - “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life’.”

    • This verse not only says a lot about the character of Jesus but also a lot about what we look like when we enter into a relationship with Him. This verse illustrates a clear difference between light and darkness. Think about what it means for something to be in the light. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase to “bring something into the light”, which means to show or tell the truth. In Jesus, there is light and truth. You know you are walking in the Truth when you are walking with Jesus. This verse also says that there is light in life, and Jesus has eternal life, so He also has eternal light and eternal truth. When you walk in a relationship with Jesus, you walk in the Truth.

  • Isaiah 9:6 - “…Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

    • This verse says a lot about Jesus. First, He is a Wonderful Counselor. Think about counselors on this earth. They come alongside you and encourage you when you are struggling or need help. They are amazing, but Jesus is the most perfect one. His words of wisdom will never fail, and His encouragement will always be exactly what you need. I want to tie these next two together because they can be seen as contradictory. He is both a Mighty God and an Everlasting Father. This is one of my personal favorite things about Jesus. He is an all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God that can do absolutely anything that He wants to and can create something as vast as the whole universe with ease. But, He is also a Father. The most perfect Father who loves each and every one of His children and knows them all better than anyone else could. Lastly, He is the Prince of Peace. This means that He supplies you and blesses you with peace, even when things around you seem to be going crazy.

  • 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’.”

    • This verse is kind of confusing and it starts to deal with the idea of a three-personal God, or the Holy Trinity. I am most definitely not an expert on this, as there are just certain things no one will be able to understand in full until we meet the Lord face to face, but I will try to explain it the best I know how. The Holy Trinity is a key aspect of the character and nature of God. There are three, what are called, “persons” in the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These persons are all God, and they are all equally God, meaning that not one of them has “more God” than another one does. God the Father is the head of the trinity. If we were to think about this as a triangle, He would be the top point. A good way to think about God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is that they are the tools or the means by which God the Father accomplishes certain things. For example, as said in John 1, God accomplished the creation of the world through God the Son (or Jesus). God the Son is the most “physical” of the three persons, as He was the one to come to earth and be made fully man (more on this later). God the Holy Spirit is what God the Father uses to speak straight to our hearts. What people often call your conscience is the same thing that Believers call “conviction”, or the Holy Spirit. C.S. Lewis puts it this way and says that God the Father goes ahead of you in your walk and prepares the way, God the Son walks beside you on this journey, turning you into another son (we’ll also get into this later), and God the Holy Spirit works inside of you. So, when this verse says that no one comes to the Father except through the Son, that means that Jesus is the way through which man is to worship and serve God, and it also means that believing in Jesus and His crucifixion and resurrection on earth is a must for literally getting to the Father in Heaven.

jesus’ life on earth

• Take a deep breath, that was a lot of information! Now that we know more about God and His three persons, we can now talk about Jesus’ life on this earth and how that totally changed the game when it comes to how we relate to God. This is something that is crucial to know and believe in to have a relationship with the Lord. This is the Christmas and Easter stories all rolled into one, so let’s get into it! Let’s do the basic events first and then get into why all of that was necessary, and what it means for us going forward.

  • The basic events: (go read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John… much more detail!)

    • God appeared to a young girl (probably 15 or 16 years old) named Mary. Mary was a virgin and was about to be married to a man named Joseph. God appeared to her and said that she had found favor with the Lord and she was going to become pregnant through the Holy Spirit (another thing the Holy Spirit can do! Don’t ask me how that works!) with a son, and she was to name him Jesus.

    • Mary obeyed the Lord and gave birth to Jesus.

    • While Jesus grew up on earth, He performed many miracles and healed many people of illness and disease. He also collected 12 disciples with Him to help spread the Truth about God.

    • When he was 33 years old, Jesus began to get accused of false teachings and claiming that He was someone He was not. For this reason, He was sentenced to death on a cross. Don’t worry, this was all part of the plan.

    • Jesus knew that this was something that had to be done. This did not come as a shocker to God, for this was the main reason Jesus was sent to the earth in the first place: to die.

    • Jesus was beaten and crucified on the cross, and on that Friday, He died. He was laid and buried in the tomb where He remained for the rest of Friday and all of Saturday.

    • But… Sunday morning came. And on that glorious day, Jesus was raised to life by God. He walked out of His own tomb Himself! He appeared to His disciples and, after a short time, was taken up into Heaven.

• Wow! Isn’t that an amazing story?! And the best part is, it’s not just a story. It’s true, all of it. Now, let’s get into the reasons why all of this even had to happen in the first place.

  • What was it like before Jesus came to the earth?

    • Well, if you read even a little bit of the Old Testament, you’ll see that it was very different from how we live today. Back in the Old Testament, sacrifices were a big deal. It was believed that, as a gift to God, an animal had to be sacrificed on the altar. But this way of doing things was not going to cut it forever.

  • What was the point of Jesus dying?

    • The point of Jesus’ death was to act as a final sacrifice. People in Old Testament times believed that animal sacrifices were necessary, but none of them ever came back to life, which meant that death always got the final say. People would sacrifice animals to God because they had sinned and needed to “pay God back” for their wrongdoings with a sacrifice. That was the old way of doing things, which is why the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occur in the New Testament. Jesus came as a final sacrifice to atone for our sins. “Atone” is a fancy word that just means “to pay the price for”. Jesus took all of the past, present, and future sins of the whole world upon Himself, and died with them as the last needed sacrifice. But, why was this the last sacrifice? Why was nothing else needed after that? Well, my friend, that is because Jesus’ sacrificial act ended in a much different way than every other one had before: in life. As I said earlier, animals didn’t come back from the dead, but Jesus did. Jesus conquered death. It was like the best two-for-one deal ever! You can imagine it like a grocery store. Jesus comes to the check out line with all of our sins and pays the cashier (death) for all of them. He leaves the store and comes back 3 days later to take his money back from the cashier, and yet our sins are still payed for. That is what He did when He came back to life. He conquered death once and for all.

  • What did that change for us?

    • Drawing upon some C.S Lewis, I want to start this section off by talking about the difference between two very important Biblical terms: begotten and made. If something is begotten, that means that what was begotten is of the same kind and likeness as the thing that begat it. You can think of this like a father and a son. A father has a son and the son is of the same likeness as the father, with some of the same genes, maybe the same eye color, and so on. If something is made, it means that it is not of the same likeness as the thing that made it. You can think of this like a sculptor and his sculpture. The sculpture that the sculptor shaped with his hands is not of the same likeness as a human. It was made. The Bible says in John 3:16 that Jesus (the Son) was begotten of the Father. He is of the same likeness. However, we were made. We were created, not begotten by God. We were made in His image, but we are not God.

    • Now that we have distinguished between begotten things and things that are made, let’s take it a step further. Our relationships with God before Jesus died and rose were that of creation to their Creator. Not of children to their Father like Jesus is. When Jesus died for our sins as the final sacrifice, that bridged the gap that existed between man and God. In the act of Jesus coming to this earth as both fully man and fully God, we were brought near to the Lord. Jesus’ death was a sacrifice, but it also acted as an invitation. An invitation to share in a life that was begotten and not made. There is a popular phrase that says “The Son of God became man so man might become sons of God.” And I think that illustrates this perfectly. Now, we have an invitation: Do we choose to reject this Truth and walk in darkness, simply as God’s creation? Or, do we enter into a relationship with Him and become His children? The choice is yours to make, and in the next section we are going to talk about what a relationship with God practically looks like.

relationship advice

• Now, you are well equipped with the basics about the character of God, His Three Persons, and how the crucifixion and resurrection was a total game changer. You have decided that you want to share in a life that is begotten, of the same likeness as the Father, and enter into a further union and deeper communion as a child of the One, True King. Woohoo! But…what does that look like in practice? “Sharing in a life that is begotten” is an awfully large phrase that encompasses a lot. We have talked about what that means from an eternal standpoint, but what about your day-to-day life? Just like any relationship, it has to be nurtured and cared for and invested in to grow. But how is that done? Well, without further ado, here is some relationship advice when it comes to your walk with the Lord:

  • Spend time with Him.

    • This is the biggest one. You know some of the things that the Bible says about Jesus, but that does not necessarily mean that you know Jesus. There is a difference between knowing about Him, and actually knowing Him for yourself. The way that you get to know Him for yourself is by spending time with Him. You’ll notice that many of these tips on building a relationship with Jesus are the same things you would do if you wanted to build a relationship with a person you just met! So let’s use that analogy. You just met someone cool that all your friends know. You have already asked around and heard what they have to say about them, but you want to get to know them for yourself. What do you do? You pick a time and place and you meet up! Same goes for Jesus: hang out with Him! And the best thing is, He will meet you anywhere at any time. Day or night, your living room or the driver’s seat of car. You name it, and He will be there.

    • One of the key parts to spending time with someone is to talk to them! You would never meet up to hang out with someone for the first time and just sit there in complete silence, would you?! Again, the same goes for Jesus. Prayer is the way that you speak to Jesus, and I promise, it does not have to be anything formal. It can be as formal and on your knees, hands folded, eyes closed, as you want, but it can also be as informal, eyes open, sitting on your bed, just talking with God, as you want, too. ALL He wants is to talk to His children. So, begin the conversation right now. You don’t have to ask for something or even need an answer to a question - just tell Him about your day. Tell Him what made you smile today. Tell Him what made you upset today. He wants to hear from you. Incorporate this into your everyday life, and just like that your relationship will grow exponentially.

      • There is one more thing I wanted to mention about prayer that I really learned about two years ago. Let me tell you a story. I had been praying for clarity about a confusing situation that I was in. I prayed daily, multiple times a day for an answer of what I was supposed to do. And I had not heard a thing. And then, like a ton of bricks, it hit me: I had not been giving God a chance to speak. I would always ask for an answer and then I would just go about my day. As soon as I said “Amen” I would lay down and go to sleep or move on to the next thing on my to-do list for the day. That was the day I learned that prayer is a two-sided conversation. Just like any conversation, it is not one person talking and the other incessantly listening, for that is not a conversation at all - that is a speech. Prayer involves two people. I have learned over the years that God absolutely adores listening to His children, but He just as much adores telling us things, too. So, after every prayer that you say, stop and be quiet for a minute or two. Give the other person in the conversation a chance to speak. He won’t always say something big and crazy or reveal your entire future to you. It might just be that He wants to say that He loves you or that He is proud of you. He says that in the Bible, but now He wants to say it to you. So let Him!

  • Spend time in the Word.

    • This is one of my favorite things to do, and one of the things that I believe we are called to do as Believers. I know, Scripture can definitely seem boring at times, especially when you get into all the genealogy of Abraham’s descendants (if you don’t know what I am talking about, read some Genesis and you will!). But, reading Scripture is so important. Not only is it important because you learn more and more things about God, Heaven, the world, and how we are meant to live, but also because it is the Word of Life. These are not just stories from thousands of years ago. These carry meaning today, and can be applied to your life. When you are reading through some Scripture, ask God not only what you can learn from it, but how you can take what you learned from it and apply it to your life right now. Here are some recommendations that I have for you when it comes to studying the Bible:

      • READ THE NEW TESTAMENT FIRST! I’m serious. I know that this seems backwards, but you have got to trust me on this one. There is a lot in the Old Testament that you will miss if you do not read the New Testament first. There is so much foreshadowing of things to come that you will only be able to understand if you read the end first. So, if you pick up your Bible tonight, don’t start at the first page. You will thank me later.

      • Revelation is a doozy, so buckle up! For those that do not know, Revelation is the last book of the New Testament, and of the whole Bible. It is a book that tells all about what will go down at the end of time, when this world is wiped away, everything is made right, and there is no more sin. It is a beautiful book and I cried many times while I read it for the first time, because how could you not love the idea of a perfect world and a perfect union with the Lord?! With all that being said, there is A LOT of confusing things in Revelation. There are many images that are, quite frankly, kind of scary. Sometimes in a powerful and mighty way, and sometimes in a bad way. But, this is the last chapter of the story of the world. This is the chapter where the good guys win and the bad guys are destroyed. This is the most amazing “happily ever after” there will ever be. When it comes time for you to read Revelation, I have a few tips for this book alone, because it is so dense:

        • Make a timeline. This helped me a whole lot. There are many times where it says “7 years” or a certain amount of days, so a timeline really helps to keep it all straight.

        • Don’t be afraid. I said that some of the characters and images are kind of scary sounding, but there is nothing to fear. Jesus is described in a way that sounds intimidating, but remember that He has to be powerful to defeat death - and He is! The bad characters are kind of scary, too, but remember what this book is all about and what will occur in just a few short pages: they will all be destroyed by our Hero, Jesus.

        • You don’t have to understand everything. This was something that I fell into when I was reading through and studying Revelation. I wanted to decipher it all, but that is just not possible. Our imperfect minds and hearts are not yet able to fully comprehend everything we read, and that is because it is just so amazing. So, don’t get frustrated when not everything makes complete sense (because it won’t), instead, be glad that you can’t understand it because it’s so great, and know that one day you will.

      • Another tip on reading Scripture as a whole is to start off reading it by yourself. If you are reading a Bible book for the very first time, do not use any other outside resources. Those are good for revisiting books or digging deeper into the stories, but they can’t be what you start with. Trust me, there are going to be certain things that God wants to tell just you as you are reading His Word. Things that you would miss if you are using someone else’s interpretation.

the prayer

If you are not yet a Believer, if you have not yet been baptized or given your life over to Jesus, you are more than welcome to do so now. If everything you just read made you want to get to know this Jesus a little better and enter into a real relationship with Him, pray this prayer right now:

Dearest Lord, I believe in You. I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus came to the earth, born of a virgin, suffered and died to pay the final and ultimate price for our sins. I believe that, on the third day, He rose from the tomb and conquered death once and for all. I believe that, by that miraculous work, an invitation has been created to share in a life begotten of You and become your child. I want to accept that invitation today and enter into a relationship with you. I invite you into my heart to make me more like you and to lead, guide, and direct my steps. I believe that you are the Lord of lords and King of kings, Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End. Today, I declare that you alone are God and that I love you.

there you go!

Well, there you go! Now you know some basic things about God, His Three-Personal nature, the crucifixion and resurrection, and some tips on building your relationship with our King. Take what you have learned and grow it. Practice praying daily, spending time in Scripture, and sitting quietly, letting God do some of the talking. I am so glad that you visited this page and I hope that you learned a few things you didn’t know before! I have some homework for you, now. If you have already read some of the blog posts, go read them again now that you know some more. And then practice these things for a little while and come back and read them again. See how your perspective has changed and see what the Lord has to say to you each time. I am praying for you!

With Love, Megan