What will you do with Jesus?

Joseph, baby Jesus and Mary in the manger

It is perfectly acceptable to speak of Him as a sweet babe. We wrap Him in swaddling clothes and lay Him in a manger; we even cover Him with light and give Him a radiant halo.

But He is all grown up. He is no more swathed in cherubic sweetness. He was a man--better than that He said he was the Savior--the Lord--the Son of God--what then, will we do with Him?

We can call Him a great teacher--but His lessons are too harsh. His message was about dying in order to live, and losing in order to gain. He traveled throughout Israel like a common transient--He gleaned His food from the fields and slept with only a rock as His pillow. He gave until His skin was bruised and torn and His life's blood flowed. 

Though he was God, yet He was not His own Boss. He laid down His own will and took up His Father's. He fully submitted to God, "Not my will, but Thine," and in the surrender of His life He demonstrated to us the way to life. He is not the fulfiller of dreams, He is the Dream. 

"Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

We can call Him a Prophet--because He spoke the words of God. But He was God, and He was the Word.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:1-5)

We want to include Him in a group of all sorts of good, spiritual men, but He will not fit. He was not good, He was Goodness. He was not spiritual, He was the Son of God, the very God Himself in the flesh. There is nothing spiritual besides Him, and all attempts to glory in any other is vain.

We cannot have Jesus and...

Savior and Lord of all!

...Jesus must stand on His own. Yes, He was a lamb led to the slaughter, yet God declares Him the Lion of Judah. He comforts and loves all who are His own; He died that all might live, but it is a "free-will" choice--to choose Him--to choose life. Each of us must decide for ourselves, because if we are not for Him, we are against Him.  

Someday, when the tombs of all the other "gods," prophets, and kings are swept away into forgetfulness, Jesus will take His place as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Will we be able to claim Him as our Treasure, our One Desire, our God and King, or will we be smitten to the ground, fearful of our fate before His Holy Majesty?

What will you do with Jesus?