GodReflection: It’s Jesus Friday
I am a product of the Industrial Age. Therefore, the concept of pattern comes as second nature.
Architects and engineers used a pattern to manufacture my car, my house, its furnishing, my computer, my utilities, and my clothes.
Patterns produced a large portion of what I eat and drink. There shouldn’t be any wonder that I am use to the dominance of patterns in the fabric of my life.
Here is where I get into trouble.
I mess up when I expect a pattern other than Jesus to keep me in a right relationship with God the Father.
In Old Testament Scripture I find precision with God’s pattern for Noah’s boat, Israel’s Tent of Meeting, and her Temple. God shared a set of blue prints with Noah, Moses, and Solomon.
In New Testament Scripture with no boat, tent, or temple, illusions to patterns are few.
Here is what I think.
When Jesus arrived in the manger history started to change in a big way. Nothing less than revelation of God lay in the straw.
Confirmed by his life, teachings, death, resurrection, and ascension, is it possible that for the first time a pattern for all the ages is reveal and it is God Himself?
Jesus teaches: “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. . . . Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
God—who is love—desires for me to grow into His Likeness. To do so He sent Jesus to be my pattern—who is the very image of God.
The more I pattern my life after the Jesus blueprint, the more I grow into the image of God.
I now see the Jesus pattern as the primary thrust of New Testament Scripture. The more I grow into the likeness of Jesus the more I draw into kinship with the heart of God.
That moves Jesus out of the area or religion and ritual. My focus turns to imitate the life of Jesus through a worship-filled life of my own. The Jesus pattern lifestyle truly illustrates church as the body of Christ likewise displacing church from religion and ritual.
Here is the upside. To the degree I get the Jesus pattern right, I get God right, I get life right, and I get church right.
The Jesus pattern is a blueprint always under construction. To be a perfect imitator of Jesus is beyond the reach of my human nature. That is no surprise to God or His Son.
As I keep the perfect pattern ever before me, Jesus covers me with blood bought grace and together Father and Son fill me with the Holy Spirit. That takes my perfection out of the game plan and replaces it with trust.
The New Testament pattern is better than boat, tent, or temple—it’s Jesus.
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – A GodReflection on Jesus the Pattern.
God Reflection 