The Jesus we Need

Luke 7:18-35 is for me, a passage that brings to light one of the greatest struggles that people had with Jesus.

When Jesus came and began his ministry - John the Baptist recognized him as the Messiah. But later on when John is sitting in prison, and Jesus isn't necessarily doing the things that the Messiah was supposed to do - such as overthrow the Roman Empire and establish His own Kingdom - even John says - are you the one that we are all waiting for - or should we look for someone else?

This comes after Jesus has been teaching on such things as "LOVE YOUR ENEMY" (see chapter 6) and and has been doing such unMessiahish things as hanging out with Lepers, denouncing the Pharisees, and allowing a great prophet (who also happened to be his relative) sit in prison. Can we wonder at how people didn't recognize Him for who he was?

I can't tell you the number of times I hear things like "I don't believe in a God who..." - maybe that is because we think we know who God is supposed to be, what He's supposed to act like, and what He's supposed to do for us. When will we let go of our own preconceived ideas of what God is like and embrace the God who really is - the God that we need - not the God that we want.