You can Become who you were Meant to Be!
In Jesus … who you can truly become.
but first, listen: "No One Ever Cared" ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y90ra4RvOzs
Let's talk about love for a moment. We are all fond of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians - - you know, when he waxed poetic about love. Surely you have heard the words quoted at weddings:
Love is patient and kind. Never jealous or envious,
haughty or selfish or rude. . .
love believes the best about others.1
Though Paul wrote these words a couple decades after Jesus, I cannot help but wonder if he had Jesus in mind, and from what he knew of the living Lord, he wrote about how love acts.
Why, it seems Jesus could not help but believe the best about others; it is just who he was. And I believe it is just who he is... today.
Sure, he was honest about how he found people.
But then, Jesus saw them redeemed . . . he looked and saw his potential;
he looked and saw her purpose.
Reminds me of another time. "Watch this," my bodyguard, the Duke of Earl from the mean streets of Long Beach, would say to me, gesturing always with his hands. [I was blessed to minister to the homeless, street people in that city just south of Los Angeles. The Duke had approached me one day and said, 'I think I should be your bodyguard; then you can go anywhere you want and do what God called you to do, and I will keep you safe." And. he. did. When he knew something was about to go down, he would say, 'Christ-teeen, watch this.' And so I say to you, Friends. Watch this - watch what Jesus does.
“Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John—but you will be called Cephas” (means Peter - which means rock]2
Jesus renamed him ‘Peter, the rock’ because he knew what Peter would become-- the first outspoken, Spirit-filled leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. Remember the second chapter of Acts, when Peter stood up and preached about Jesus on Pentecost? Three thousand people said 'yes' to Jesus that day and stepped into what Jesus knew they would become.
Brief note: Different than the other three gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, referred to as the synoptic gospels (meaning similar order, stories, events from the life of Jesus Christ) . John clearly has a different mission, as we have not read about the announcement or birth of Jesus, or about Jesus' 40 days of temptation in the desert, immediately following his baptism.
But John has carefully ordered these firsts in Jesus' ministry—beginning with the Jewish leaders going out to the Judean Desert to question the Baptist about what he was doing and why. And then Jesus going out to the Jordan River (near Jericho), to be baptized by him, with Father and Holy Spirit making their presence known. Trinity, yes. The next day, John the Baptist announced Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God' and two of his disciples followed Jesus, with Andrew then going to tell his brother Peter 'we have found the Messiah' as well; all became followers of Jesus that day. And then . . .
“The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.
Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” “Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.
> Notice with me that Philip does not argue with Nathanael – about anything good coming from Nazareth, likely because he knew, he was aware that there was a Roman army garrison there, meant to keep the Jews ‘in line’ . . . not to mention the Nazarenes' back woods nature … ‘I mean really, a Messiah from Nazareth--seriously?'
“As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Israel—a man of complete integrity.” “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.”
Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!” Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.”3
I love that Jesus saw who Peter was to become and he gave him that name – Rock! And then, there was Nathanael . . . Jesus saw him under the fig tree which always stood for peace for the Jewish people. But there was something much more that Jesus communicated to the heart of Nathanael; Jesus saw far beyond where Nathanael was, to what he could become – that which Nathanael only carried in his heart, and yet, Jesus knew him.
And to Nathanael, that was life! When Jesus was able to look around a ‘corner that he could not see’ with his physical eyes, Nathanael knew. He knew that Jesus saw him under the fig tree, that Jesus really knew his heart and to him that meant everything—enough to drop whatever else he was doing and follow Jesus. He seemed to know that in Jesus, he would become who he was meant to be.
He sees what we can become, what we ought become as well, if we walk with him. Such plans he has for us!
Love believes the best about others.
Jesus believes the best about us;
it is just who he is.
Don’t you love that about him?
Plus, he never gives up on us. No, not ever.
That's the best news you'll get all day.
Christine
John, no.6
1 - from 1 Corinthians 13.4-7
2 - John 1.42
3 - John 1. 42-51
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