The Real Picture Of God (3)

We started with the fact that 'God has been misread and misinterpreted by so many people because No one has ever seen Him' and then we also established last week that 'the revelation of Jesus is the real picture of God'

And today we will be raking it further by beginning to see together who Jesus presented himself to be

I want you to be open minded for now and permit me to present to you the real picture of God through Jesus Christ.

Not the religious Jesus, but the real Jesus who walked along the dusty streets of Jerusalem and upon the raging waters of the Galilee.

He was the one whom the sick, the poor, the sinful, the outcast instinctively gravitated to and felt at ease with.

He was God in the flesh(incarnation) and He manifested His love for us in several ways

In His presence,those who are imperfect didn't feel fearful of Him OR sense judgment or condemnation from Him.

The Pharisees were critical,fault finding, legalistic, pretentious, bigoted and most of all,Ignorant

They made loud claims about their piousness for God,and yet when they stood in the presence of God Himself,they were too self occupied to recognize Him.

#SoSad

Good news:

You don't have to be religious before you can access God.

In fact the less religious you are,the better

The real Jesus didn't come to bring a new religion.

I think I need to dwell more on this

Christianity is not a religion. 

So our focus as Christians should be preaching religiosity.

One of the mistakes some of us make when we go for evangelism is that we are always presenting Christianity as a religion and in the process the person we are preaching to starts comparing His or her religion with Christianity.

And like I shared last week,I know about a few religion and I can tell you religion hasn't succeed in making any man to reach God. Religion is man's way of reaching God, but no man has successfully done that.

That is why God decided to reach out to us by Himself

Glory!

Also,  the real Jesus didn't come to the earth to be served and waited up,He came to serve and serve He did.

He created the universe with one command and orchestrated the paths of each planet do that none would collide.

He has every right to demand service from those He created,yet he supplied service. 

He kneeled at his disciples feet and washed their feet's

And these are some of the parts that only few people talk about.

It's high time we begin to reveal the real picture of God by preaching Jesus and not religion

Christianity is all about Jesus.

The gospel is Jesus nothing - nothing

The real picture of God that was revealed through Jesus is actually far from the judgmental, fault finding and condemning God many has portrayed him to be

Luke 4:

18

KJV:The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19

KJV:To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Jesus read these verses before He started His ministry

I have read this portion of the scripture several times. In fact those that know me very well will know it's one of my favorite. I will hardly lead a prayer meeting without quoting it. 

But not too long ago was when I found out that Jesus was quoting from Isaiah, and that wasn't even the amazing part but.

Isaiah 61:

1

KJV:The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

2

KJV:To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

Jesus didn't finish the portion he was reading from

20

KJV:And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

He stopped somewhere!

And then He closed the book

I want to compare those scriptures and make us to see something together

Verse 19 of luke 4 says 

"To preach the acceptable year of the Lord"

And then Jesus closed the book

But in Isaiah 61: 2, where He was quoting from

It didn't stop there,something's followed that sentence

"...and the day of vengeance of our God... "

So why did Jesus stopped there?

That's a topic for another day.

But let me just say this to us,

Stop where Jesus stops,don't add to what He didn't add to. 

People have used the "The day of vengeance" part to make promote fear in the heart of people. 

Please have this at the back of your mind

"Any part of the bible that you read or someone preaches and it promote fear in your Heart,please take your time to check that portion all over"

If Jesus has come for vengeance or to condemn the world,I doubt if some people would have had the chance to get close to Him not to talk of getting healed or whole again.

Love is who He is.

And every of His ways and acts in the new testament proves that.

If you hear anything otherwise then please check it yourself

Next week we will continue as we see Jesus first and consecutive miracles and we take the scriptures from one chapter to the other.

Please take your time to read through.

The Real Picture Of God (2) By Yinka Samuel

Let me continue from where I stopped last week.

No one has ever seen God...John 1:18

Growing up as a Christian was exciting for me,I must confess.

I asked so many question from my leaders,questions like, why is Jesus  the truth?

Lol.

I was made to understand so many things,and I also understand that the truth is singular,it is either Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or one of those religious founder. There was a  time when I went on a wild search for the truth personally. I used to be and I'm still inquisitive.

I studied about other religion and unfortunately the picture of God these people portray has little or no differences from the one I had then; A God that is short tempered,who is merciful but His mercy lasts only for a moment,a God you have to beg to heal you.

Religion sha!

God has been misread and misinterpreted so many times. All the laws and prophets presented their opinions of God and none of these opinions devoid their personalities.

They were true witnesses but with a glimpse. By revelation each of them set forth a portion of the truth.

Elijah called down fire was God at  work,but that is not the express image of God. God sent Jonah to preach but his attitude did not reveal the total image of God.

No human description could correctly reveal God to the world. Through a life of purity,a life of perfect trust and submission to the will of God, a life of humiliation that even the highest seraph in heaven would have shrunk from, God revealed himself by Himself.

Hallelujah!

This will be only RELIABLE revelation of Him,the express image of the Invisible God. In other to do this,our saviour clothed His divinity with humanity(INCARNATION OF GOD). He employed human faculties, for only by adopting these could he be comprehended by humanity. ONLY HUMANITY COULD REACH HUMANITY. 'THE WORD BECAME FLESH'.

Jesus' way of life and earthly ministry is the perfect REVELATION of God that we have. He lived out the character of God even in to human body which God had prepared for Him.

18

KJV:No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

So the first part was what I explained last week while the last part

'The only begotten son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him'

Talks about the incarnation of God.

Which I just explained too. 

Only humanity can reach out to Humanity.

If you are doing your home chores and you mistakenly stepped on an ant,permit me to say the ant is a female and it has an husband. When you step on the ant and the husband whom they were waking together sees that,what he does first is that it takes off, of course will surely come back to carry the dead body of its wife.

But the thing is,since it wasn't intentional, you might feel sorry for it and possibly want to communicate your intention to it

'I didn't know,I'm sorry' but the More you try the more it keeps running from you.

But trust me,if you can just turn to an ant at that moment,you will be able to communicate clearly to the ant and tell it your intention.

I wish someone gets that analogy.

Because that was what God did for us,he had to reach out to us in a way we can comprehend.

To come and present the REAL HIM to us through CHRIST JESUS.

So the John 1:18 is a balanced diet,telling us about the old covenant's perception about the unseen God which they could only define by his acts ,and the Real picture that was revealed in the new through HIS ways.

Hallelujah!

And that is why the first problem the Pharisees and Sadducees had with Jesus was that HE LOOKED LIKE AN HERETIC. Why? He presented to them a God they are not familiar with,they only know about His acts,but His ways are strange to them.

To them there are 10 things you need to do before you van access God,but they hated Jesus the more when He presented God as that person that can easily be accessible;JUST COME THE WAY YOU ARE. It was against their theology you see.lol

So as time goes on we will together see the lifestyle of Jesus and with the help of the Holy spirit, we will see the real picture of God through the ways of Jesus.We won't rush it like I said earlier, its going to be a 6months series. So let's take it pocco a pocco.

Nevertheless, the truth that is being established tonight is JESUS IS THE REAL PICTURE OF GOD

One of the things I will also be making us to understand in the course of this series is how the old testament is connected with the new,how God wanted to communicate somethings to us in the old but because we couldn't understand,He made them more clearer in the New,and also how the new testament is older than the old.

Thank you so much for reading through,

you have chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from you

The Real Picture Of God (1)

Let me just prepare our minds, the series we are about to start tonight is going to be on for *6months*.

I hope that won't be shocking to you.We are going to start today and continue every Tuesdays and then bring it to a close by December.

So get ready to get the best out of the series. 

When God gives a leading like this; to take a topic as a series,I believe He wants to reveal somethings to his people.God is always reaching out to us,every time everyday. So there are so much He would want us to know.'And you shall KNOW the truth and the truth shall set you free'.

So there is this thing about man when he KNOWS,something pops up on his inside and he feels this enlightenment. I  believe you know what I'm talking about.To start with,the WHOLE Bible, revolves around JOHN 3:16. From genesis to revelation you can always relate it to John 3:16.We will Still get there during the course of this teaching.

18

KJV:No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

John 1:18 says 'No man has ever seen God...'

NIV:No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Permit me to emphasise on the 'a'  part.

*NO MAN HAS EVER SEEN GOD*

You know for the logical ones amidst us,we will always wonder how God and Adam communicated before Adam fell. 

You will wonder how the devil and Eve were able to communicate. That's one of the things that would be unravelled as time goes on.

For everyone in this group,if any one ask you any of these questions what will be your answer?

Have you seen God before?

Have you seen an angel before?

If you haven't seen Him before, how come you now say you are born again?

And I'm sure people will give different answers to these, based on their paradigm.

*NO MAN HAS EVER SEEN GOD*

The reason why it is easy for someone to come up with a particular religion and say 'he or she is the way to God' and people will follow such is because *NO MAN HAS EVER SEEN GOD*

There are over 4000 religion in the world. and what every person that pioneered each religion claimed is that 'their own way is the way to the real God'.

And it is very easy for an average man to be persuaded by such,most especially when the person can do one of two magic which they call signs and wonders.*SO I SAY TO YOU,IT IS VERY EASY TO HAVE A WRONG PERCEPTION ABOUT SOMEONE YOU ARE YET TO SEE*.

I have only met a few of us in this group. So I can tell you that you can refer to me as who I am not since you are yet to meet me.

So let's see something together from the scriptures.

AMP:He made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.

AMP:He made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.

I don't know why my phone is not copying chapters and verse.

That is psalm 103:7.

The He was referring to God.

Even though  *NO MAN HAS EVER SEEN GOD*, this same God wants us to KNOW him. 

He wants to be so known that He wrote 66 books about himself.

That is why our salvation experience that took few seconds,will take us a life time to keep on unravelling the mysteries behind it.

John 17:3 says '..this is eternal life,that they may KNOW me..

Back to psalm 103:7.

*He(GOD) made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel*

So the invisible God has ways and acts.

He revealed his ways to Moses. 

The same God,revealed his acts to the children of Israel.

So it is possible for Moses to say something about God that the children of Israel would disagree with. Why? They are someone is seeing God's ways and the children of Israel, God's acts.

His ways is deeper than His acts.

That's a topic on its own.

So also are there times in the old testament where you will see God showing His ways to some people and then His acts to the other. And you will ask yourself,can this be the Same God?

One of the parts of the Bible that is always baffling me is the beginning of the Bible. Genesis 1:1. 

You know when you are reading a book and a character is being introduced from the first line without we getting the details of the character.

In the beginning,GOD created...

There was a time I was like,why didn't He introduce Himself before He starts telling us the things He created.

Throughout the Old testament,no one could say 'I KNOW GOD'. The only thing they could hold on to are the prophecies that were given by His prophets.

Why are we considering this topic *THE REAL PICTURE OF GOD*,because no man has ever SEEN God. 

Without doubts,we in this group have different notions about God,but at the end of these teachings, we will all come to a place where we believe only one thing; we will come to the Unity of faith.God is a spirit being.

Almost Everyone everyone knows that but beyond that 'there are still more to God than some of us can ever imagine'.

Since its the first day of the series.

Let me just lay these truths and as time goes on we would build on them.Over the years, most of the revelations I have had at meetings or teachings are those that either

Tells me more about who I am in Christ OR tells me more about God's ways.

As much as Moses saw God's ways,permit me to tell you that He only saw the Shadow of God's ways.There are lots of pictures many have created about God but there is A picture of God.During the course of these series,so many orientations will change. People with wrong perception about God will change their minds.

*No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, WHO is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known*

The b part of the scripture talks about the incarnation of God.Like I said earlier, this is going to be  a 6 months thing, so there is no need in rushing it. Nevertheless if you will for get any thing tonight please remember

The reason why God has been defined by so many religious leader is because NO MAN HAD EVER SEEN GOD.

Let me share with you what a silly friend of mine told me not too long ago.He said 'he feels like starting another religion too, he said if he can just do one or two magic,and with the help of social media,he will just say he is the way to God'

As funny as that sounds,I hope you know he is going to have his own followers,if His silly thought actually comes to pass.*There is something called The real picture of God* if I tell you otherwise, I am only telling you lies.

Join us next week Tuesday as we continue in this series. Invite your friends, and if possible your enemies.

If there is any question,please feel free to ask.