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The Attributes of Jesus

by Anna Wood
12/02/2008 / Bible Studies

Jesus is where complete holiness, complete love, complete justice and complete mercy come together and make their home comfortably among one another. One of His attributes in no way ever diminishes another. His complete love created us because He wanted us. His complete holiness could not be around us because of our sinfulness. His complete justice would have no choice but to condemn us to spend an eterntiy apart from Him in hell. His complete mercy saved us through His death on our behalf. To save us from our sins, Jesus chose to bear our sins for us and die on the cross in our place, thus paying the price that His holiness and justice demanded but that we were incapable of paying.

If we knew that something that we were contemplating would cause us as much pain as we have caused our Lord, how many of us would go through with it? Not me, and most likely, not you, either. But, He's not like that. Where we run from our pain, He embraced His. All of the pain that the Lord God has ever experienced has come from a being created by Him. Could He not create beings that would not hurt Him? Of course He could. But He chose not to because forced love is no love at all and, like us, God wanted to be loved simply for Who He is.

God is love: perfect, complete and totally unselfish love. He extended perfect love to mankind in the garden of Eden when He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening; His perfect love was rejected. He extended perfect love again in the form of covenants with His people Israel; He was again rejected. He finally extended perfect love to us in the birth, life, death and resurrection of His Only Son, Jesus the Christ. This offer of perfect love was rejected by the recipients of it. His offer of perfect love was rejected even by His own earthly family. His brothers believed Him to be insane and wanted to take charge of Him. It was only after His resurrection that they believed in Him. It was easy to believe then, wasn't it? Here is your dead brother walking around and talking to you--alive and whole. How can you not believe then? They then became followers of Him finally. Two of His brothers went on to write books in the New Testament: James, who was a leader in the church in Jerusalem and wrote the book of James and His brother, Judas, who wrote the book of Jude. After His resurrection, many of the Jews who rejected Him went on to believe and obey and become members of His heavenly family. But, before they would believe and obey, they had to be convinced: God's love for them wasn't enough.

Today, we who are Christians (Christ-ianliterally, little Christs) are Jesus' family. Do we treat Him better than the Jews or His earthly family did? Do we accept His offer of perfect love? Do we show Him that we love Him in return by our obedience? In Luke 6: 46, Jesus said, "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" He ties obedience to loving Him. Further, He ties holiness to obedience. In 1 Peter 1: 16, it says, "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." That's not written as a suggestion, but a command and is thus something meant to be obeyed. Do we? Do we bow before His perfect holiness--the only attribute of God declared in triplicate in scripture--not once, but twice? No where is God declared "love, love, love" or "mercy, mercy, mercy" but He is declared "holy, holy, holy" in Isaiah 6: 3 and Revelation 4: 8, marking holiness as His defining attribute--the lens through which all of His other attributes must be seen and defined. Do we understand this and obey it? Do we strive to be holy, as He is?

Do we mirror His love with our lives? Do we show His mercy to those who don't deserve mercyas we didn't deserve His? Does His holiness shine through in our lives? Do we understand that His justice demanded our death and that He substituted His own for us? Do we really understand the cost of our salvation? Are we giving everything to Him as He gave everything to us? Jesus said that you can know a true disciple by his fruit: Matthew 7: 16, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Does the world know that we love Jesus? Do we mirror His attributes? Do we act like Jesus, serve like Jesus, love like Jesus, live like Jesus? Are we yet another Judas Iscariot willing to betray Him? Do we betray Jesus so that we might have fun, live as we want, do as we want? Or are we a balm to a sin-sick world, mirroring His truth no matter what it cost us? Do we really make "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (I Corinthians 2: 2) our reason for living or do we just mouth our devotion to Him? In Matthew 15: 8 Jesus said, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." Do our actions bear out our beliefs? If we are to change the world then our belief in Jesus has to change us. His attributes must become our attributes so it can be said about us, as it was the disciples of old, in Acts 4: 13b, that, "they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."

Anna Wood is a Christian wife, mother of 9 children, homeschooler and writer. Her desire is to know, love, and obey God and bring Him glory and help others to do the same. Her website is called The Apples of Gold and is at http://theapplesofgold.com

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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