Dear Family,
How in God’s Name does Jesus—the life of Jesus—leave the realm of fantasy, religion and myth as a biblical character to one of reality, truth, knowing, and a daily awareness of His impact?
If the Gospel is truly “the Power of God”, and if it is to have its full impact on what that power is directed at—our brains, the Gospel must become something we know, and we must know why we know it!
As long as Jesus, truly the ONLY figure in the Gospel, is still portrayed as a baby in a manger or a figure on a crucifix, the Gospel will never be known. Jesus must be KNOWN, not believed on or in. And He must be known through the Scriptures—which are not the New Testament writings. The Scriptures, as defined by Jesus Himself are: the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets.
The Law was an exercise God revealed to humanity through the history of Biblical Israel. That demonstration showed we were not designed to live by laws.
Jesus came on the scene, to His own nation first, demanding faith and belief as the ultimate and logical conclusion to trying to live-out the Law.
And what was the conclusion? Israel, even with the Messiah in their midst, absolutely proved that humans have no ability to keep God’s Law as a means to a covenant with God.
Regarding our ability to have faith, Jesus said if we had just some faith—even the smallest amount of faith—we could cast a mountain into the sea. And to show how little faith it would take He compared it to the littlest of seeds—the mustard seed. He said if we could have just a little itty bitty faith it would cause the physical world to be affected.
No human has ever had that kind of faith, ever. We do not and cannot have the faith that God demanded.
Moved any mountains lately? Seen any moved by someone else?
What I call the “Body Document” (aka the Scriptures) was never written to be believed in or have faith in. It was given so we could actually KNOW Jesus and the power of HIS resurrection.
Through several centuries of text and writers, this Body Document has proven itself to be the Divine Spoken Word of God.
It was never wrong, inconsistent nor inaccurate in its multiple accounts of Jesus as the Messiah. This foreshadowing was hidden, what Paul called a mystery. However, that mystery has now been revealed.
There is no calculable possibility for someone to have put the hundreds of prophecies together so they could be “acted out” at some later date. It was only in retrospect that we know what God was up to. This is especially true when you see how that the Scriptures, and Jesus Himself, even hid its own true meaning until “the Day of the Lord!”
For example, had someone wanted “to make” the prophecies “be true”, no one would have had Jesus born in Bethlehem, be from Nazareth, to have women as close confidants, nor be betrayed by someone named Judah (Judas) Hebrew for the “Praise of God”!
So, you may ask, Mike, why are you calling the Scriptures by this term “Body Document”? Glad you asked! I use this term because it is a document that became a body. God breathed words, became a physical document manifested in the body of ONE. The Scriptures are a body of work, a Body Document, so the work could become a body, Jesus Christ.
How can one KNOW Jesus? We know Jesus by knowing the Scriptures: the Law, Psalms and the Prophets. As we begin to understand the Body Document, we begin to see the very form of the Messiah! You can feel His form, hear His voice, see His face.
Paul said, when HE shall appear, be revealed, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is!
I talk to Jesus ever morning when my phone rings and it is my sweet brother Richard Mull. I was privileged to have Jesus in my house for four months this summer, before he went off to school, Ray Harris. I watched Jesus run the sound board at our recently completed Summit, Jeff Robertson. I’ve listened to Jesus sing in Kate Benham and Greg Amburgy. At those Summit meetings Jesus sat next to me in the persons of Glenn and Carla. Jesus showed up in a beard and long hair from Wisconsin, Josh Tennie. He stayed in the parking lot in a motor home next to the hotel, Alvin Cooper. Jesus wept as Mary Lou Koostra, with eyes moistened, listened to a message she had never heard before.
At the Summit we dared to know the Scriptures rather than to believe the writings of any man.
I admit my limited knowledge of the Scriptures, that beautiful Body Document. But to every degree I understand the Scriptures, the more I KNOW Him! I see Him. I understand Him. And I begin to understand me.
And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one. Zechariah 14:9
Much Love,
Michael