Loving Jesus More

11 Peter 1:8-9

What's the big deal about Jesus? What does a personal relationship with Jesus mean to you?

1 Peter 1:8-9 (Love Him, Believe in Him, Filled with Joy, Receive Salvation of Your Soul now)

Reflection on Scripture
What we can see in the person of Jesus
In Jesus, we can see a visible form of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15)
Without Jesus, God is just an idea.

What we can see in Jesus’s life and death
Jesus provides an extraordinary example of service to God and to humanity. (Hebrews 12:3-4; Philippians 2:6-9).
Jesus possessed great courage and strength to serve God’s purposes for his life. (Luke 24:42)
Jesus was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice, his life, in order to obey God’s will for his life. (Mark 10:45)
God provided for the salvation of humanity through Jesus. (Titus 3:4-6)
Jesus has a unique relationship to God and status in the history of humanity.

What we can see through Jesus’s resurrection 
God lifts up those who look to him for life. (1 Peter 5:6)
Fighting for what’s right is not a lost cause. (Gal. 6:9)
Seeking to live by love is not a fool’s game. (1 Cor. 13:8)
Integrity is not a waste of effort. (Psalm 41:12)
God does not abandon those who put their trust in him…. (Heb. 13:5)
Jesus’s resurrection proves that God really does triumph over evil. There is justice. There is forgiveness. There is reward for doing good. There is eternal life. (Heb. 10:35-36)

What we can experience by being “in Christ”(70 times in NT)
Our greatest hope: Christ in us—A new way of living (Ephesians 4:22-24)
A new way of thinking (Richard Rohr)  
It means for us our daily choice to put up either the new or old self.
Salvation for the present means our being saved from our own self even as the image of God in us is being restored, which is, Christ-likeness.

What's your relationship with Jesus like?
Savior, Lord/Leader, Example, Friend, Brother, or Your ___________
What does Jesus mean to you personally?

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