One mistake that some people make in reading the Bible is that they categorically say, "The Bible is God's Word," and give equal weight or importance to each of the individual books of the Bible, regardless of their source. Or when there is a situation where certain Scriptures contradict each other, they just choose to adhere to the one they happen to prefer.

I personally do believe in some sort of a hierarchy or classification of priorities when it comes to the books and characters of the Bible, especially when it comes to Jesus. The words of Jesus in my opinion outrank any statement of the prophets or apostles, since He was obviously more than just one more of them. That is why, when there is a contradiction between, say, a passage in Proverbs and something Jesus said in the Gospels, I always give greater weight to the words of Jesus, Who also said of Himself, "A greater than Solomon is here."

There are so many aspects about Jesus; so much wisdom in Him, that one doesn't even know where to start. But what sets Him apart from every other human is that, according to the Bible (John chapter 1, for instance), it is He through Whom the rest of us were created. He is called "the beginning of the creation of God" (Rev.3:14), and John refers to Him as the "I Am," (= Jehovah, Yahwe or Jah) the name of the Jewish God of the Old Testament, which was the "blasphemy" for which the Jews killed Him. So, that rules out His role of a great philosopher, because, as C. S. Lewis already pointed out, He was either a lunatic, or truly what He claimed to be: the Son of God.

But in this book, I want to emphasize not so much on what He stands for spiritually, but a little bit more on the human aspects of Jesus, and the things which we, as humans, can learn from Him as a Person, those that you and I can relate to.

The Bible tells us that "He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb.4:15).

Since we all come equipped with certain weaknesses we are especially prone to, Jesus shows each of us a way to overcome our sins and weaknesses. He gives us a model of what to do and how to act when we are tempted and faced by our particular weakness, our "thorn in the flesh" or "sin which doeth so easily beset us." "Looking unto Jesus" we can cast those aside and aspire to the place where He not only points us but also guides us, for He is with us every step of the way (Mt.28:20) and has been there Himself.

Perhaps one might consider it unrealistic that Jesus should have experienced each temptation exactly the same way we did. He certainly did not pass exactly through each same experience during His human life that every other living person did, but the basics. As far as the details go, since He is connected to His children, His followers and believers, whom He has also called His friends, and even His bride, I personally am convinced that He is actually able to see the world through our eyes, to experience what we experience, to feel as we feel. "We have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are" (Heb.4:15). If we are to believe Him at all, then we also have to believe this. He feels for us. He feels with us. He cares. He knows exactly what you're going through and thus is perfectly equipped to help you, better than any psychiatrist or therapist can. But you must believe this in order to avail yourself of His services.

Jesus calls the zealous endeavourers among us to righteousness exceeding that of the Pharisees (Mt.5:20) and "good works" that come from a reconciled heart, not from compliance with duty.

He teaches those among us striving for perfection that "perfection always runs across the collapse of our own moral efforts and self-established ideals. Only the experience of God's unconditional love leads to the realization of our own sins, brings about repentance, and makes conversion possible. A key paradox of the Gospels is that we become perfect by accepting our own imperfection. We must recognize that it is part of the process of growth, that we make mistakes.*"

To the achievers among us Jesus gives a call to true success, so entirely different from what we in our earthly ambitions consider success and achievement. The culmination and peak of His "career" was the cross, the great paradox that we just won't comprehend unless we commence to grasp and perceive with eyes of the spirit, rather than our carnal minds.

He achieved that greatest victory of all through an apparent defeat and showed us that such victory can only be achieved by invisible riches, such as faith, the true and lasting currency of God.

Although Jesus was probably the greatest Rebel against and labels of "normalcy" that we as mankind have created, He did it in such a true way that it should remind any of those of us who seek to stick out from others, that you don't achieve being different or special by trying to be so. His level of authenticity is unreached by any of us who pursue artistic careers or try to rise above the norm through our behavior or extraordinary actions.

In respect to the "silent majorities" among us, who just "do as we're told," there is no clearer sample than that of Jesus' life to show us just how much more important it is to obey God rather than men. Maybe that's why He kept reminding His disciples - and all of us - not to be afraid, not to fear, because He knew that it would take extraordinary courage for us to truly follow in His footsteps, instead of falling for some earthly fake authority, creating a cheap counterfeit of what His Kingdom is truly supposed to be like.

While Jesus showed through His life-style that it is indeed a good thing to enjoy life - and He did so to such an extent that earned Him the reputation as a "winebibber" and "glutton" - He also has a clear message to the hedonists among us, who make pleasure their purpose in life, as He is also a Man Who can weep and face the ugly sides of life, not to mention the cross He chose, with which He would deliver us all from our miseries.

Although called the King of kings (and a non-believer may sometimes question what earned Jesus that title, since there was evidently nothing during His earthly life that would earn such a superlative rank) and doubtlessly the ultimate Authority in respects to both the authorship of the world (including all of us) (see John 1:1-14) and its future (Rev.11:15), yet Christ, with His living sample of humility clearly gave a messages to the "bossy" leader and ruler types among us, showing that His idea of who truly is the "greatest" differs quite vastly from ours, most of the time.

If Jesus is truly God made flesh as most Christians believe, then the danger in our relationship with Him lies exactly where it has always been concerning our relationship with God throughout the ages. We create our own false images of Him in our minds. Probably the commandment not to make ourselves an image of God was given because God knew that even centuries after the worship of images and idols hewn out of stone, people would still continue to worship not what He really is, but just their own idea of Him.

And unfortunately, this seems to be the case with Christianity, and what most of established Christendom has "made" of God and Christ. The true nature of God, and thus of Jesus, are buried under a heap of rubble of traditions and false concepts and teachings, often not based on the Scriptures, but man-made interpretations of them, and it takes really getting to know God as He really is, in order to discover what lies beneath that rubble.

Unfortunately, discovering the true nature of Jesus requires determining that the commonly portrayed picture of Him is clearly what He is not. "Forget what you know" and what you've been told about Him is a good slogan.

The best way to really "get" Him is to read His own Words with the fresh mind of a child, believing Him with childlike faith for what He says, and when He promises, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you will find," you'll believe Him for it, and you'll know that He hasn't stopped talking 2000 years ago, when John finished writing the Book of Revelation (as some claim), but that He's got lots more yet to give and tell you, personally (see Jer.33:3).

Unfortunately, the most blatant lesson we seem to learn from the life of Jesus, when we look at the 2ooo years that followed His earthly life, seems to be that we haven't learned anything much at all from all that He was trying to teach us. The church seems to have taken on the same position as the Pharisees took against Him, and after a few centuries of furious persecution, the church eventually moved from the arena into the grandstands and has often become the very persecutors of the true followers of Christ.

Once again, the proverb seems to fulfill itself, "The only thing we learn from history, is that we never learn from history."

(Heavenly Input on Jesus:)