All of Jesus

Luke 4:42 At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him, and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
 
WOULD it be good that all Christians are as the people of Capernaum were that day? They had heard Jesus’ preaching, had witnessed demons cast out and had seen remarkable healings. Jesus, fully God and fully man, was intentionally intense with his people to demonstrate and “proclaim the year (time) of the Lord’s favor: (Luke 4:19). You could say in our language, “He gave his all. He held nothing back. Jesus gave 110%.” Yes, our Lord gave all of himself short of the cross. And then the Jews wanted more.
   And why wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t you want more of such a God as this? Certainly! Or do we? Could it be we don’t want all of Jesus? Maybe we only want a part of him that makes us feel good. Perhaps we want all his love, but we set aside some of his commands, especially the ones that convict us of our personal sins. Possibly we love his sacrifice, but we stop short of our own sacrificial living.
   That’s how it is for us much too often. We know that wanting more of Jesus should be our greatest desire. But sometimes we feel that being with Jesus can challenge us too much. Being with the Savior, we often feel unqualified and ashamed. He’s so perfect! Striving to walk with him, we can abruptly step off the path to encounter regret and shame. “Will I ever get it right?”
   The answer, of course, is that we will not live perfectly. And that is why we should want Jesus to stay with us. We need him to walk through the shame and guilt. He loves us enough to die for us, certainly he frees us from sin forever when we trust his love.
   Let’s stay with Jesus – always on our minds, always in our hearts, always in our souls.
  
Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, for being intentionally intense to live, die and rise again, so I may stay with you forever. Amen.