If I haven’t already stated it enough, growing up Jewish changes a lot more about one’s walk with Jesus than most people would assume. Several of my Christian friends have asked me why I call myself Messianic instead of Christian? What separates me from them? Do we not share in the same beliefs?
They are all valid questions; questions I don’t exactly have profound answers to. In fact, the answers behind those questions stretch far deeper than I even realize. No, there isn’t much at all that separates us, we believe in the same God, we love and praise the same Jesus, we have been granted the same redemption and salvation, we are loved just the same, we read the same Bible, and ultimately if we truly live by it, we make up the same church.
However, (and this is honestly the only way I have to describe it) it is completely different to grow up with Jesus, than without Him. Not only without Him, but for 20 years of my life I convinced myself that He was a lie. “The Gospel” was something I heard time and time again, when I’d go to church with friends after a sleep over, or with my grandparents, or my mom on Christmas Eve. I heard it, I knew it, and I was annoyed by it. I believed it was a lie, I believed it was dramatic. As a kid growing up, I carried around some pride in knowing the truth about Santa Claus when all of my other friends believed, and the same kind of arrogance was applied to Jesus and the Gospel. It’s not that I didn’t know about Jesus, in fact, I “knew” all about Him, and I rolled my eyes every time I heard His name.
I say all this to say, “the Gospel”, as it’s traditionally defined does not compel me. It wasn’t revolutionary for me to hear. I heard it time and time again and disputed it. Therefore, hearing that Jesus died on the cross one more time, did not have me running to the alter.
Last summer when I began to pursue God, I was set on a mission to discover who He truly was.
Was He mean, was He judgmental, was He loving, was He caring, was He spiteful? Did He truly cast into hell or was He merciful? Did He kill everyone that disobeyed Him or did He grant grace? Could you talk to Him freely or did you have to use specific words in order to appeal to His holiness? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know whom He was or what it meant to know Him.
However, the more I pursued God, the more He revealed to me. It was through Jesus, (not His death and resurrection, but) the way He lived His life, the way He related to others around Him, that I began to see the true character of God. I began to see a God that loved me, a God that was personable, a God that didn’t condemn me but that adored me, a God that I could talk to without fear or trepidation, a God that didn’t bring death, but offered life. Realizing this is what brought me life and redemption. Realizing God’s true personality and heart, is what caused me to pursue a relationship with Him. For the longest time I have not identified with the phrase “I got saved”. Quite frankly I believed that any salvation I did receive came from getting to know my God, not because of Jesus’ sacrifice. However, with this I have realized that because of Jesus, because of the life that He lived, because of the man that He was and is, I have fallen madly in love with my God. That is the Good News that changed my life. That is the Good News, the Gospel, that saved me.
As I enter into missionary work like this, I grow nervous. I have been told that when sharing the Gospel, I must be sure to highlight all the key points; Jesus came and died, on the cross, and shed His blood, to wipe away our sins, and three days later, He was resurrected. But that’s not the part that I want to share, that’s not the part that electrifies my heart.
The Good News that I love to share is a story of a God, who when He finally gets the chance to show His true character, when He finally gets the chance to show His disciples and the world, what kind of God He truly is; He removes His outer garments, ties a towel around His waste, kneels down on the ground, unties the dirty, warn down sandals of the men whom He knows will soon betray Him, takes hold of their filthy, aching, calloused, smelly feet and cleans them, washes them, wiping their dirt upon His own clothes.
When we get home from a long, hot, sweaty day and take off our shoes, we often bury our feet into our lap, or under a blanket, hiding them in socks, or out of the sight and smell of those around us. But our God removes those coverings, despite our bashfulness and vulnerability, our God smiles, rests our feet in His palms, and cleans them until they are pristine. That is a God that compels me, that is a God that inspires me to live a better life, that is a God that I will leave everything behind for in order to serve, that is the Gospel to me, and the story that I hope to share with the nations. That is the reality of my God, Yeshua the Messiah, my Savior, my Rock, and my Redeemer.
