The Great Unknown: Jesus Christ

If you have really known me, you will also know the Father.
From now on you know him and have seen him.
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father; that will be enough for us.”
Jesus replied, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you all this time?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

-John 14:7-9 (CEB)

One of the great paradoxes are Christians that don't know Christ.  

It is a mystery and an enigma how people could be Christians, "in name only".  It is a conundrum and a puzzle to both the onlooking world and to Christians who do know Christ and have made him their Lord and Savior, walking in a mutual knowing discipleship relationship with Jesus through all their days.

Many people who call themselves Christian are truly longing to know and to see God.  

"Some day, I will see God when I get to heaven!", a self-identified Christian might say.  Another Christian might say, "I hope God shows up at church today!", or "I am traveling to this conference or meeting to get a touch from God".  They sit in the audience and hope for Moses to lead them to the mount of God or for Moses to share some of the presence of God that he or she got on their mountain.

Jesus tells Philip and he tells us that we are not in the old paradigm any more. 

If you have really known me, you will also know the Father.
From now on you know him and have seen him.

Jesus has come to reveal God.  Today, by his Spirit, he is with every believer.  He also ministers to each one through his body.  Moses and Elijah are gone.

Jesus is the head of His body. 

What if we recognized Jesus as God and Jesus as the head of his body, the church; and then saw leaders in the church as hands, feet, arms, legs, necks, or backs?  All of the body is a supportive structure for the head.

What if the place God is leading us to is a place where leaders are "faceless".  What if the body was so supportive of the head, that when we experienced the body, the church, that the main thing we would see and walk away with was a lasting impression of Jesus?

In the New paradigm, the New Covenant, we are each and all the house of God.  

We don't go somewhere geographic to find God.  God is dwelling in us, with us, and among us all the time.  When we do meet up or gather with other believers, we come from having been with God.  We come together fellow-shipping and mutually edifying one another.  We celebrate and we strategize about how to "take it to the streets" and win others to the love of Christ.

"Come let us go up to the mountain of our God and worship the God of Jacob", and "I rejoiced when they said unto me let us go to the house of the Lord": had very different meanings before Christmas and after Easter.  The mountain of God is now in your living room, your back yard, your neighborhood; it is wherever you go, if you are God's child.  You also are now the house of the Lord.  He dwells in you.  To go there is to step inside or to welcome Him who is already there.

A great leader of our time said, "the meat is in the street".

It is a gargantuan mistake and spiritually blind to not see God and know Him in everyday Christian life.  God is at the beach, in the mountains and desert.  God is at the local coffee shop and God is in your living room.  Invite Him to show himself there to you and yours.  God is very much out there in the streets as well.

The invitation still stands to know Christ and in Christ to know God.  You just have to say yes and begin the relationship.