Secondhand Jesus

I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand— from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry— forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor. (Job 42: 5– 6 MSG)

A few years ago Glenn Packiam wrote Secondhand Jesus in which he suggests  we have accepted a secondhand account of who Jesus is in exchange for a personal knowledge of Him.

How often have you met someone whom you have heard much about in advance only to be shocked by how different that someone is in person? In our spectator Christianity, many have only a secondhand experience of Jesus. That would be bad enough, but many of us are relying on rumors of Jesus that are incomplete or, sometimes, false.

I grew up with the idea that we could only know Jesus through an intermediary, the church or her representatives. I remember being confused with the term “personal savior.” It took a long time to learn that Christianity is a relationship and relationship can only be experienced first-hand. There is a danger with this. Each relationship is different. My wife is a different person to me than she is to our children, grandchildren, friends and acquaintances. If someone tells us about “his” Jesus, and it doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know, we can decide that one of us must not know Him at all.

It’s sad to watch and listen to the vastly varied portrayals of Jesus that come through the media. It’s even sadder to listen to Christian leaders attack each other because their experience of Jesus is different. No doubt some portrayals of Jesus are so far off as to be heresy, but other differences just show a difference in experience.  We should honestly relate our experience of Him and encourage others to share the blessing of a personal relationship.

In one sense, we can all say, “You don’t know Jesus like I know Jesus.” Don’t get me wrong. Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever. We are the ones who are limited. We may think of Jesus as a babe in a manager, a great teacher and healer, a crucified sacrifice, a risen Lord, a returning King. He is, of course, all of these, we are the ones with difficulty grasping all that He is. If we focus on just one aspect, we can become unbalanced, confused and unfruitful.

We will not experience all of Jesus in this life. We should be open to listening to the experiences of others. However, we should never settle for less than a real personal experience of Him, an experience that will expand and become more blessed the more we follow Him. As we do, our excitement and anticipation of experiencing all that He is will guide our steps and motivate our walk.

Jesus came that we might experience God first hand. Don’t settle for less.