Wednesday, September 1, 2010

"The Jesus You Can't Ignore"

There is a semi-famous song performed by Depeche Mode entitled, "Personal Jesus." In our society today, many of us have created what amounts to our own personal Jesus. This Jesus is not the Jesus of the bible, but instead is a creation of our minds to fit our own felt needs. This man-created-Jesus is a meek, mild, and loving Christ who is emptied of any forceful words, judgment, and wrath.

We need to be careful that we follow the Jesus we read about in scripture instead of one of our own imaginations.

In The Jesus You Can't Ignore, John MacArthur reminds us of who Jesus is. In this book, MacArthur focuses specifically on portions of scripture where Jesus deals directly with the religious leaders of His day. We read of the hard confrontations Jesus had with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, etc. The Jesus we read about speaks very clearly and forcefully to those who had perverted the message of the Old Testament.

It is always fascinating to read about Jesus. He is the only person who speaks the way He does. This makes sense since He is, after all, God. This book was a good reminder that Jesus does not mess around when it comes to speaking the truth. While He was gentle with the truly repentant and downcast of society, Christ "took no prisoners" when it came to the religious leaders.

I liked this book a great deal and highly recommend it. It served as a stark reminder to me that Jesus speaks the truth in love, but He does speak the whole truth!

In these pages, MacArthur reminds us of the Jesus who is (as opposed to the one so many have created ).

2 comments:

Aussie John said...

Eric,

"In our society today, many of us have created what amounts to our own personal Jesus. This Jesus is not the Jesus of the bible, but instead is a creation of our minds to fit our own felt needs."

The very same has happened regarding the assembling of God's people, interpreting Scripture to formulate practices, which deny the Holy Spirit His place in ministering to, and through the members of the Body.

Eric said...

John,

I agree. It is so easy to read into the bible what we want to see there. Ugh. May God give us clarity to understand what He really means.