Jesus - Invitation or Innovation?

For many people Jesus was simply a teacher of moral innovations and an agent of change.  Many people give Jesus credit as one of history’s most influential moral forces and innovators. Attributing to Jesus any power or sustainability beyond his ideias and innovations does not fit the modern view of Jesus. He died, they say, but his ideias and innovations live on among all the other competing ideias and innovations.

People who see Jesus in this way have never come to grips with the Jesus of history or the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible and history never called people to his ideas and innovations. and he never said he was an innovator ready to compete.

Jesus called people to Himself not  to His ideias.  In fact, He did not traffic in ideas or innovations. He stated facts over which he claimed to have total authority given to Him from His Father. He was singularly focused on His own facts as the facts that matter.

Perhaps to best way to see Jesus is as a personal, loving invitation given  to each of us written in flesh and blood.  Everything Jesus said and did is an invitation to us to come home to the original idea the Creator has always had for humanity which is Jesus.  Jesus embodied this original human ideal and turned it into a personal invitation to live Him.

One does not evaluate the ideas of an invitation. One evaluates the one who invites.  Take a good look at Jesus. See Him and listen closely to Him.  If He appears to be generous, loving and caring, say ´yes´ to His invitation.  There will never be a better one that comes to us.  He is the God we all hoped exists!

Bud McCord

Abide International

Simplicity in Jesus

If I could give one precious gift to those I love it would be the gift of simplicity I have found in Jesus.  Simplicity found in Jesus is a gift that would serve them all and last forever.  His simplicity has blessed me more than any other gift.  I know His simplicity deeply blesses.

His simplicity is the gift that calms the heart, lowers the level of fear and gives a vision of the path that lies ahead.  His simplicity makes any place a good place to be.  His simplicity makes me a better person to be around.  His simplicity makes the world a hopeful place.

When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me" He was saying much more than "Come with Me to heaven."   He was saying "Come with Me back to the essence and simplicity of the Creator."

Following Jesus has set my feet on the path to simplicity.  Neither life nor death is complicated in Jesus.  "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Bud McCord

Abide International

The Way in 2016 “I am the way…” Jesus

There is a Way. There is a way that is not the way.

Acts 19:23

And about that time there arose a great commotion about the Way.

A way that satisfies. A way that does not satisfy.  

Gen. 2:15-17

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

A way that leads to God. A way that does not lead to God. 

Gen. 5:2

And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

A way that prospers us. A way that consumes us.

Psalm 1:1-6

Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners,

Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree

Planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

A way that ends well. A way that does not end well.

Psalms 23:1-6

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.

A way that is the truth. A way that is a lie.

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.

A way that few find. A way that many find.

Matthew 7:13-14

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

A way that harmonizes everything. A way that destroys everything.

Col. 1:15-20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Which way in 2016?

Bud McCord

Abide International