The Christ Who Is

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"We need to follow the Christ who is rather than the Christ we want."
-- Brent McKinney

I love this quote from Brent, one of our pastors at Crossroads. He made it a long time ago in a staff meeting and when I heard him say these words I wrote them down immediately. We were discussing the old way of "doing religion" versus the grace and mercy Jesus introduced. So often we (and I) want to believe that Jesus was somehow more tame and philosophical than radical. The Gospels portray Jesus not as some great moral teacher who wants us to achieve the best for ourselves and be happy, but instead they reveal Him as a just God who demands that we be holy but gives us the grace when we fail to be so — and we will always fail. The conclusion of our staff discussion was that we need to study our Lord not based on our culture or personal preferences but based on the truth of God's word. Who was Jesus? What did He say in the Bible? What did He do? How were people affected by Him?

I'll confess that some of the things He had to say are hard to accept. Many are hard to understand. But Jesus is the person of the Gospels, living and active yet unchanging.

What Jesus do YOU follow?
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