January 27, 2021

Have you met the real Jesus?

DOES JESUS' LIFE ACTIVELY CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT YOURS?

Whit George, Lead Pastor of Church On The Move, and Adam Bush, sat down for an honest and in-depth conversation about letting God change them. They call the experience, “meeting the real Jesus.”

Have you met the real Jesus? One way to tell is by looking at how you treat people or think about yourself—it’s a direct expression of the way God is working in you. To put it plainly, our love for God is expressed in our love for other people.

A lot of Christ-followers become more interested in gaining knowledge about interesting biblical facts or useful techniques for prayer than allowing God or those techniques to deeply change them.

Maybe you’re reading this and you’re puzzled by how often you’re able to disassociate those two things: loving God and loving people. You can’t figure out why you’re so short with the people in line at Starbucks. Or why you’re yelling at people to get out of your way. Or maybe you’ve become increasingly puzzled by people who disagree with you politically or socially.

So what needs to change?

The quick answer: your affections for Jesus and your willingness to let Him change you. If you were to ask Whit and Adam 1o years ago, do you love Jesus? The answer would have been, absolutely. They both worked at a church (and still do). Their affections for God were real, they just weren’t nearly to the depth that they are now, and because of that their relationships suffered.

We find God as useful.

It’s easy to think if you give God your good behavior, in return He’ll protect you. Or if we read the Bible or say a prayer every now and then, He’ll bless you. Sometimes we end up thinking of God as a sort of vending machine. We find Him to be useful, just not beautiful.

We need to find God beautiful.

God desires relationship with you, and there is life in that relationship. God is our creator, and connection to Him is connection to life itself.  In other words, the deepest, most meaningful thing about existence is that we’re connected to this Creator. So to get closer to Him, is like getting closer to the source of life and everything good. It’s like the sun on a plant, there’s growth. Finding God beautiful is really the journey of what it is to be human, to become fully yourself, and fully alive.

Little by little, as you begin to make Jesus the object and focus of your life the more you’ll begin to change. The strangest things will start happening! You’ll have more patience for people, more love for your family, and more grace for people who are struggling. You’ll begin to see in Jesus a more beautiful way to do things.

Listen to Whit and Adam discuss their personal experience with meeting the real Jesus.

Learn more about Spirit In Motion here.