An Assured Christ

WED., MAR. 10, 1999, 8:31 AM
FPC, ASC

One of the reasons this Gospel of John is so important to you… leading you to your first rebirth… is Jesus’ assurance that He is the Christ, the Messiah. Further, though He knows He must die, at an early age, He also is assured that death is of no consequence… that His life will continue. You, then, “adopted” this assurance, for yourself, and are now more than certain that your life will continue after bodily death. And not only continue, but in an enriched, enhanced fashion.

As Jesus, I called Myself the Shepherd of the sheep. The Shepherd has more power than the sheep, but uses it, ideally, to protect these lesser creatures. In your culture there is the fundamental assertion that humans have strengths, abilities, and capacities… much superior to sheep. Yet, relatively, in comparison to the Shepherd, Who is the Triune God, you are more like sheep than the earthly shepherd. Much human inventiveness and valuable resources go into creating weapons, mechanical and electronic “things”, buildings, and… yet much of this, ultimately, is “a chasing after wind.” You are more like sheep than you think you are… or wanna be.

You know that there are Christians… and dedicated “sheep from other folds”… who live much more of their lives in acceptance of Me as the Supreme Power of this realm (and of all realms) than you have. You have not denied Me, but much of each day of your life, during your working years, was more centered on the University, your students, your profession, your family, and your home place than on Me, and what I wanted from you. But you should now feel that you are privileged to live on beyond your work-life and hence can give more attention to Me. You can “flesh out” the assured Bob that you know yourself to be.

As Jesus I knew, this Gospel assures you, that I must give up My bodily life for a greater good. You did not have to do so, comparably. Now, however, you can prepare, through these Teachings, especially, for the transition from this particular life to the broader, deeper, clearer life in the spirit. It shall be a return that will be both familiar and surprisingly new. But there’s no real hurry!

( 9:00 / 11:52 )

I certainly realize that with the wide range of friends, family, former students, and acquaintances there is minimal encouragement to have the kind of dedication to spiritual matters that I am pushing for. Yet I see the value in your maintaining many of these diverse relationships. Even if you can finally come closer to what I want for you, it is still to be identified as a “semi”-monk. So it still is good that you are involved in some ways in some aspects of your culture. (You needn’t seek or be “talked into” any “leadership” positions. This advice is comforting to you, but I just wanted you to hear it from Me. Given the Scripture on which I first commented you should be satisfied to be one of the sheep rather than the shepherd.)

You’ve often noticed that while I, as Jesus, often spoke in ways that might mark Me as a leader, I did little in the way of organizing these assertions into doctrines or My followers into a “church.” By today’s standards We were a rather “rag-tag” group, with very little apparent organization. So isn’t it interesting that most of Christianity… My Body… is organized in quite a diversity of ways, with doctrines, rules, regulations, and practices that are quite beyond what the Scriptures describe, in relation to Me.

Rather, this section of John’s Gospel tells of My encounters with the rabbis and the organization of “My religion”, Judaism. Sure, there is a commandment – “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” – which had been translated into “You can do no work on the Sabbath.” I healed a man, and by this regulatory interpretation I had “worked”… and therefore “I was in trouble.”