I don’t really know a lot about Jesus Christ in the scholarly term of “know.” I don’t know much about the facts surrounding His ministry. I don’t know what archivists and archaeologists have discovered about Him. I don’t what He looked like or what He ate or how He dressed. Most of what I know about Him comes from trying to read and to live what was taught in the four Gospels. I have a deep sense of gratitude for His teachings, His example and His sacrifices for us.
1. The teachings of Jesus Christ are His gift to help us to live happier lives.
Why did Jesus Christ spend so much time teaching people to love enemies, to forgive, to not judge and to not lust? Was he orchestrating a series of tests so impossible that no man could pass them? Was He sadistically trying to make us all into His robotic slaves and servants? No, His unselfishly-given commandments are the greatest, and indeed the only true, self-help manual ever written. His New Testament could be retitled “Simple But True Steps to a Happy Life.”
Love your neighbor (Luke 10:27)
Love your enemies (Luke 6:27)
Forgive and don’t judge (Luke 6:37)
Don’t lust (Matthew 5:28)
Don’t contend (Matthew 5: 22,25)
Don’t worry about the future, focus on the present (Matthew 6:34)
Pray (Matthew 6:9)
Don’t do good to get noticed (Matthew 6:1)
Don’t worry about having more “stuff,” worry more about things that will last even after death (Matthew 6:19)
As I try to live Jesus’ commandments I have been surprised by their ability to make me happy. He made no money from His teachings, He literally had everything to lose and nothing to gain from sharing His revolutionary ideas with us. The longer I live, the more I realize that His teachings were the only way to make humankind truly happy. They are the best relationship manual ever written.
His teachings actually work. “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in the New Testament.”
2. Jesus Christ is no respecter of persons.
I am so grateful for the constant scriptural reassurance that Jesus Christ doesn’t care what we look like or how many talents we have. He doesn’t care about the color of our skin or how tall or short we are. He doesn’t care if we are cheerleaders or ballerinas or soccer stars. He doesn’t care if we make the football team or not – although he empathizes with our devastation if we don’t. He is “no respecter of persons” and He just loves.
Most of us walk into a room looking for the “statement people” to talk with. That was not His way. Jesus Christ looked for the people who needed His help.
I am so grateful that I had this testimony in elementary school and high school. I was a pretty underaverage kid. It was such a gift to me to know that Jesus Christ spent his life showing love to people who others would consider outcasts. He loved underachievers and lepers and the mentally ill and sinners, He loved people who didn’t look right and didn’t talk right and didn’t act right. He loved people who were on the fringes and on the margins. He went to their houses, He ate with them. He noticed them. I felt deeply His care for me as an individual even, or especially, when I made embarrassing mistakes or when I was treated unkindly by others.
3. Jesus Christ is the great Rescuer.
Have you made some big mistakes? Do you ever feel hopeless? Do you ever feel that you have ruined things so badly that there is no way to ever overcome your mistakes? And then you keep making more mistakes because you have already ruined everything? Or perhaps you are a helpless victim of the unkindness and cruelty of others. This is where Jesus Christ comes in. I know that He suffered and died for our sins. I have made quite a few mistakes. And I have sinned against God, myself and others. So have you. And what do you do then?
I have felt great joy as I have turned to Him who suffered for your sins and have petitioned to be made whole. He cleaned up all of our messes in one overwhelming act of forgiveness that covers all of eternity. That selfless act performed in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary is the reason for my joy and the joy of all Christians. It is one of the most joyful doctrines ever taught. We can start over because of Jesus Christ. As one wise woman once promised, “All that is wrong about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” I cling to that promise tenaciously when life is unfair, and I am wronged or when I do wrong that seems irreparable. I have faith that someday the suffering of Jesus Christ will bear eternal fruit in the lives of each of us, blossoming into an eternity of joyful new beginnings and change brought about through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
4. Because of Jesus Christ We Will Live Again After Death
The resurrection is a great fact attested to in the New Testament. We know that Jesus rose from the dead and in so doing He opened the door for us to rise again. A wise person once said “The only way to take the sorrow out of death is to take the joy out of living.” I look at the resurrection as the great sorrow-eraser. When we receive unwelcome or tragic news about a loved one or for ourselves it can tear our souls apart. We may live in such fear of death that we cannot enjoy our lives. Or we may choose to live for momentary pleasure because we doubt that life continues after death.
I have never seen a resurrected person or our Resurrected Lord. But I trust the clear testimony of so many in the New Testament who gave their lives to share with us the knowledge that Jesus Christ lives again and so can we. I love the testimony of Job: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26). I add my faith to Job’s, that death is not the end and that we and those we love will someday live again.
Jesus Christ is my greatest Joy. I testify that He loves each of us dearly no matter who we are, that He can rescue us from sin and that because of Him, we will live again after death. Thank you, to my dear friend Jesus!
