God walked and lived on this earth as a man for thirty-three years. Jesus willingly chose to lay aside His divinity and be born as a baby; choosing to live with all the limitations of being human, like us. But unlike us, Jesus chose to live in full and complete trust and submission to God and to be led by Holy Spirit. This meant that Jesus lived not for Himself and His own desires but in complete surrender to God the Father’s will for His life.
“Nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”
Mark 14:36
By His death and resurrection, Jesus made it possible for you and me to do the same. We can know God and choose to submit our will to His, trusting that He is good and wants what is best for us. We can choose to trust in His plan for our life.
The question we need to ask ourselves is – do we trust God enough to surrender our will to Him? We can’t trust someone we do not know; and that’s why it’s so important for us to know God. We get to know God and what He is like by reading the Bible. From beginning to end, God’s faithfulness, His compassion and His power are revealed. The perfect representation of God is found in Jesus.
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”
Hebrews 1:1-4
Is God trustworthy? Will He take care of us and be willing to do what is best for us? The answer to these and all our questions is found in Jesus. How did He live His life? Did He want what was best for the people? Was He willing to do whatever it took to make their best self, their true self possible?
The cross showed us how much God loves us and wants us, no matter what it costs. God the Father loved us so much that He sent His only Son into the world to suffer and die for you and for me. God the Son loves us so much that He was willing to leave the perfection of heaven with His Father and Holy Spirit, live life as a man and then die a horrific death, to make a way for us to be able to live with Them for eternity. Holy Spirit loves us so much that He is willing to live in us. Perfection housed in an imperfect vessel, empowering us to live like Jesus. Why? So that others can know God.
God wants to reveal His love for all people. He wants them to know how good He is, and He wants to do this by living His life through us. That way, everyone we meet is able to know and receive His love expressed through us.
This is why we are alive today. God’s purpose has never changed – let Us make them in Our image.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. “
Genesis 1:26-27
We are to let God reveal His love to us, receive that love in all of its fullness, and then pass it on to those we come into contact with. When we do that, we are choosing to live as Jesus lived.