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On Saturday, we saw that the Saviour's resurrection was well foretold in scripture. Remembering that our Lord faced a severe "identity crisis" on that first Easter and the days following His resurrection, we will today focus on identifying His purpose and how we can identify ourselves with that purpose...
Identifying the Messiah's purpose...
Post resurrection, not only were Jesus' disciples and his followers guilty of failing to identify their blessed resurrected Lord, they were also guilty of still not identifying their Master's purpose for coming into this world. And that purpose was to be: "a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." (Luke 2:32 ESV). Despite being with Him all those years and listening to His countless sermons proclaiming Himself to be the Saviour of the whole world, His disciples were still trying to come to terms with the original purpose behind Jesus' first coming. So much so that we see them posing a witless question in Acts 1:6: "Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?" (NLT). Oh how much it must have pained the Saviour that they were yet to fully comprehend His agenda for His first coming! It had nothing to with anything political, but everything to with all things spiritual! More than occupying any earthly throne, Jesus had always been keen on occupying the thrones in the hearts of men!
Come Lord Jesus to reign in our hearts!
Identifying ourselves with the Messiah's cause...
It is one thing to identify the Messiah's cause, and quite another to identify oneself with the same. The disciples, to whom His cause was revealed, were called to identify themselves with their Master's cause by being his witnesses in "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:9 NLT). In the same way, His followers through the ages, to whom His cause has also been revealed, have also been called to don the same role.
Witnessing for Jesus, stripped of all its fanciful trappings, is as simple as telling everyone what Jesus has done in your life. With all the excitement that a terminally ill cancer patient who is operated upon and healed by a Doctor would tell others of his/her Doctor's wondrous surgical skills, we are called to tell our story. Then again, just as a patient who had a brush with death would do this passionately, starting with family members and then relaying this news in ever-widening circles, we, too, who have tasted His redemptive love and have been saved from far worse 'eternal death', are called to testify in a centrifugal manner about our 'experience'. We should also begin with our family members. Note that Jesus, in the above-captioned scripture portion (Acts 1:9), put Jerusalem first. This signified that his disciples were to start the work of relaying the Good news of Jesus' saving power right at the place of their stay, and from there, they were to proceed onto other places... Yes ... 'even to the ends of the world'. That we are reading this piece, most probably in a place far away from Jerusalem, is proof enough of the fact that Jesus' disciples did a commendable job when it came to identifying themselves with their Master's cause!
How are we faring on this front?
Prayer: Father, make me a witness for Thy glory to the viewing public at all times-through my lips and lifestyle. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
But there is more. Not only must we identify ourselves with Jesus' purpose, we must identify ourselves with His resurrection power and with the completion of His Resurrection work. Join us on Thursday for "Of Easter and Identity Crisis, Part 3: The Resurrection Power"!
Suresh Manoharan
An unworthy servant
J and SM Ministries
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