Just Give Me Jesus...

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.CHAPTER ONE: Jesus Makes God Visible . . .To Me John 1:1-9Years ago my mother was invited to a very prestigious dinner party in London, England. The glittering affair included members of the royal family as well as other aristocrats and leaders from British society. The dinner, softened by candlelight, with the tinkle of silver and the sparkle of crystal accompanying the sounds of accented conversation, had an ambiance of elegance.The occasion might have been intimidating for someone unaccustomed to such a setting, but my mother was as at ease as a queen holding court. Dressed in a simple black gown with a triple strand of pearls around her neck, she looked stylish and sophisticated. Heads turned as people whispered their curious inquiries about who she might be.But my mother was so interested in the other guests at her table she was oblivious to the small stir she had created. Her expression was not the duly bored, arrogant look adopted by many of the socially elite. Nor were her words stilted and self-conscious. Instead, her eyes danced with the joy of life, and her conversation was lively and peppered with questions as she sought to draw the others at her table into a discussion.As she conversed, Mother discovered that the distinguished-looking older gentleman seated beside her was the former head of Scotland Yard, Great Britain’s equivalent of the FBI. Fascinated, she respectfully began to probe him for anecdotes. As he opened up under her genuine interest, he revealed that the departments under his authority had included those for forgery and counterfeiting. When she surmised that he must have spent a lot of time studying counterfeit signatures, he corrected her. "On the contrary, Mrs. Graham. I spent all of my time studying the genuine thing. That way, when I saw a counterfeit, I could immediately detect it."Today, our world is cluttered with lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and fraud at almost every level. From government leaders to salesclerks to airline ticket agents to restaurant maître d’s to business associates to secretaries to friends to neighbors to advertisers,everyone seems to play loose with the truth.This "whatever works is right" attitude has even crept into the Christian community. Too often, we focus on methods instead of missions, programs instead of prayer, organization instead of inspiration, pragmatism instead of power. Many preachers preach to be popular, instead of preaching to change lives. Their sermons are 95 percent their own thoughts and 5 percent God’s truth. And the average church member cannot tell the difference because he or she is biblically illiterate!Sadly, this also tends to twist our perception of Who Jesus is. While some have softened and sentimentalized Him until He is barely recognizable, others have distorted and doubted Him until He is undesirable.My mother’s dinner partner had unwittingly touched on a very important principle. If you and I want to be able to detect counterfeit Christs and counterfeit truth, we need to immerse ourselves in the real thing. We need to saturate ourselves in the truth of the Word of God. This applies to our faith in general, as well as to our understanding of Jesus.Who is Jesus? He lived two thousand years ago, in an obscure town, in an obscure country, during a relatively dark period in human history that was dominated by the Roman Empire. Yet He stands unequaled and unparalleled in the phenomenal greatness of His life as well as in the stunning impact He has had on history.As we turn the corner into a new millennium and gaze back at the last two thousand years, a handful of individuals seem to rise up from our history pages-individuals whose lives or words or accomplishments impacted the entire human race, for good or for bad. Names like Julius Caesar, Martin Luther, Muhammad, Christopher Columbus, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Adolf Hitler, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, Joseph Stalin,