What Is Jesus Doing?

It's morning, and I'm working on some coffee and some of God's words to get steered in the right direction for the day. My goal for today is to know Jesus' will for me and to  follow it. But what is Jesus up to this morning? What does he want for me, and how will I know what it is? There are ways to know and follow Jesus every day.  Let's look at a couple of them.

I'm working on being tuned in to the will of Jesus by simply studying the Gospel accounts until they become a deep part of my thinking. I want to be so familiar with them that I'm guided by Jesus' words, actions and especially his motivations, which are pretty clear in the Gospels.

For example, Jesus showed love, concern, patience and kindness to people that no 'proper' person in his society would have even recognized as being alive. He went out of his way to heal people; the story of two demon-possessed men in Matthew 8, for instance, has him crossing the Sea of Galilee, getting rid of the demons, and then going back, for no other apparent purpose. There are many times when Jesus felt "compassion" which is far stronger in the Greek than our puny English word -- it means to be moved in one's bowels. Most of us are too 'polite' to think about that today, but let me ask you: do you become so moved, in love for someone else and their situation, that you feel it in your gut? (Jesus had other words and actions, some of which appear angry and even condemning, and as we study those we find something else behind them; we'll talk about that some other time.)

Another way to understand and follow the will of Jesus is to see how his words and actions were interpreted in the epistles, by those who knew him well. Most of the epistles were actually written before most of the Gospels, and because the Holy Spirit was constantly reminding people of Jesus' words (John 14:26) his teachings came up as the apostles taught about situations in life and in the early church.

And of course, the Holy Spirit is the mind of Christ in us, and will tell us what Jesus is doing. Our part is to quiet ourselves before God using various spiritual tools, so that his voice becomes clear.

What is Jesus up to today? He is continuing to find ways to bring people to the Father so they can see his amazing, un-metered love for all people, no matter how messed up they are. My job today is to do that too. How about you?