The whole Jesus - He's not what you think.

Christians are in love with the idea that Jesus is their Savior. We cherish the concept—we tell stories about his saving work including our own testimonies of the day we "got saved", we plead with people to come to Christ as they are and receive Jesus as their "personal Lord and Savior". Too often this recognition of Jesus as Savior remains simply cognitive. For this saving concept to transcend the conceptual and become efficacious in a believers life, Jesus needs to be viewed with a more holistic approach.

Jesus did not simply come to earth in a human suit to be your Savior; he came to be your King and to issue a fuller form of the Kingdom of God than what was in place under the old covenant. Numbers 23:21 declares Yahweh to be the King of his people, which at this point was directed solely at Israel. In the book of 1 Samuel, Israel rejects God’s reign over them and demands a human king. Samuel warns the Israelites that this is a bad idea; why would anyone reject a perfect and good King to take on a fallen and finite one?

Since Israel’s rejection of Yahweh—really since the fall of man in the Garden—human history has been about one thing. American Christians are often arrogant enough to think that it’s about us. Silly us. Human history is about Jesus, not only redeeming the debt of his people because of sin, but restoring the Kingdom to the King. For the Kingdom to be restored the same sin that led Israel to reject the king in the first place had to be dealt with, thus the need for Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Cross.

While on earth, Jesus said things like, “The Kingdom is at hand”, and that the Kingdom was “the purpose for which I have come.” Jesus arrived on earth to reveal a progressive nature and fuller consummation of the Kingdom so that people would not only seek salvation to save their own tails, but so that they would realize that there is a King who deserves to be worshiped, obeyed, and engaged in relationship. Jesus isn’t saving people to pack churches full of hypocrites—he’s saving people to advance a Kingdom that he already reigns over as King.

Would any of you walk through an American mall sporting a shaved head and wearing burlap and sandals? Of course not, because you’re not a post war Japanese monk, such attire would be normal for them but freakish for us. Why is it so easy for us to obey the customs of our American culture, but when it comes time to obey the King in his own Kingdom we either ignore him or symbolically spit in his face by showing no regard for his commands? Jesus’ Kingdom is of another world (John 18), but it also includes this world. The Scriptures say many things about God ruling from sea to sea and owning all things, including humans. Do we want to be guilty of rejecting the King like the Israelites in 1 Samuel? If you think they were foolish, look in the mirror.