Spirituality from Jesus Christ: An Inside - Out Change and not an Out - Inside-Change ....... An Inner New Spiritual Birth .....
John 3: 1-18 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews … The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot, see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot, enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell, whence it cometh, and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have verlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not ondemned but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
The Consequence of The New Inner Spiritual Birth:
Luke 4: 16-28 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee : and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, '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, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 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. ' (A Quote from Isaiah 61:1-11)
And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in you ears. And all bare him witness,, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country, But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon, their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way, And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught, them on the sabbath days.
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Notes: (A Quote from Isaiah 61:1-11)
- Isaiah was one of the Biblical prophets from 700 - 600 B.C. so his focus was on liberation and good news coming to pass in the future Messiah Jesus is reading this prophecy out from the writings of Isaiah and says He is the fulfillment of the prophecy
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The focus of Jesus:
The focus of Jesus was on an internal, invisible change of heart and not on an external, visible keeping of certain standards and religious laws. The life He presented was an internal one which flowed out to have external, visible actions ..... especially on how we treated other people. Life is an 'Inside - Out' approach and not an 'Outside - In' approach .... It starts with us being better people on the inside. His whole primary focus was people as one humanity (not by race or gender), not ideas or religious teachings as with the Jewish Religious people of His day.
Jesus's view of people was radically different to his religious counterparts. His religious counterparts had people graded into a hierarchy of those who within their religious framework of acceptability .... who kept close adherence to the teachings, standards and religious laws that they subscribed to ..... which went way beyond the teaching of the Old Testament.
Jesus didn’t start an organisation but developed relationships with a small core of people. These then multiplied around the then known world into small committed fellowships or house churches. In the New Testament Greek of the New Testament, ‘Church’ is translated from the word ‘ekklesia’ which is simply a gathering or community of relationships. It had no religious connotations at all ….. it could even mean a political gathering.
Jesus had a very Hebrew view of life which was very wholistic whereby all aspects of life had value to God. All of life was unified and were very important to God as God was the Creator of life. There was two parts to the world:
- An invisible Spiritual Realm and a very visible Created realm. It a very unified worldview
- The first part 'The Invisible Spiritual Realm' leads to a focus on the Presence of God through the Holy Spirit with what I call a Christian spirituality
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For Further Reading Beyond a Spirituality from Jesus Christ .... see this Blog Site .....
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