What does it mean to TRULY know ✨Jesus✨?

Written By @3130beloved
jessicachow3130beloved.jpg

Knowing about someone is like ‘following' them on IG but never having actually met them.

We don’t know them personally but FEEL as if we do bc we know ALL about their lives + what they eat + who they’re “friends” with + their spouse + where they travel, but we know nothing about what truly goes on in their personal life + their true day-to-day struggles…

•

@dave_lomas at @realitysf preached how, “Jesus isn’t just our family’s faith or the faith our nation CLAIMS to believe or faith of where we grew up or just what we do.”

People claim Jesus nowadays in the most blasphemous & disturbing ways.

If someone says they go to church & love Jesus, yet slander others + push Jesus aggressively onto others + judge + discriminate + sleeps w/ their boyfriend/girlfriend, etc… We can see for ourselves just how much they “LOVE” Jesus…a.k.a. they don’t know Him at all & “they don’t even go here!”(Mean Girls) 😎

People will say they are an evangelical bc of the way they vote or live in the ‘Bible Belt’ or want to go to heaven...

So what does it mean to truly know ✨Jesus✨?

I feel it’s to receive Him as our PERSONAL savior and the Lord over our lives.

This should [[ DENOTE ]] us.

It should mean we’ve wrestled with the Meaning + The Life + The Teachings of Jesus AND His Death + The Cross ✝️ [[ AND ]] we still choose to follow Him.

To follow him means to LOVE like Him.

To love like him is to know him.

To know Him is to get to know His voice + his sarcasm + his joy + his almighty power + his goodness + his love + his easily kindled anger and wrath ALL by reading His word. 📖

THE GOSPELS (Mark, John, Luke, Matthew ) are great places to start learning about Jesus’s life and making his practices our practices.

He practices were:

1. Solitude & silence

3. Prayer- time away from everyone to spend time w/the lord

4. Simple & sacrificial living being obedient to God

5. Intensely study & meditate upon scripture

•

He knew the justice and mercy of God.

He knew how to serve the lost, poor, and marginalized.

He knew that God is near & always draws near as he does with us.

We too can have this confidence by being in the midst of Jesus’s will when we align with his practices by truly Getting. To. Know. HIM. 👆

@3130beloved

I’ve always hated these, “Bio” or “About me” sections— so awkward.

But… after living 25 years lost in my agnostic world chasing my own fame, glory, comfort and will I was brought to my end. After the death of my mom, ending the most manipulative & emotionally abusive relationship, a lifestyle of drug addiction, 2 abortions, and finding myself empty while standing in the middle of what the world says is “bliss”… I reached the end of myself and the beginning of seeing Jesus’ light beaming down on me.

I met His Holy Spirit for the first time at a Halloween rave called, “Day of the Dead.” To this day, I still think this is one of the darkest places to be on our planet. I raved and popped pills to numb my pain, to avoid my fears and to suppress my sadness. I was in the middle of bobbing my head and raising my arms to the electro house music blasting in my ears when images of skeletons came on the TV monitors and the weak spirit within me has a knee-jerk reaction to put my arms down. “Whoa! I don’t worship that!”, I thought. “Wait, what do I know about worship?” Now looking back, there God was! The beginning of my site for Him.

A year later, I followed my brother (his good looking friend) to church (@realityLA). I don’t remember the sermon but I heard God for the first time when worship began singing, “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me.”

I LOST my mind.

It was an overwhelming & LAVISHINGGG upon me of, "Hi precious girl. I see you. I know you. I’ve been here. I know your pain. I know your loss. I know you are lost. I know you’re angry, specifically with me because you lost your mom and you think your life is unredeemable but my beloved, I’ve been coming after you because you are mine.” I cried the hardest I’d ever cried in my life because my entire being just knew… This. Is. God. This. Is. The. Master. Of. The. Universe— and He wants me? Broken, selfish, ugly me?

I soon followed this good looking friend of my brothers to a community group. There is where I met the love of God through His people as they accepted me, fed me, welcomed me, and took me in as family despite my lifestyle that rebelled against everything they believed. One year later, I said, “Fine. I’ll follow until you fail just like everything else has.” Well… He hasn’t failed nor broken any promise yet. ;) My choice to accept Jesus as my Lord, savior and new identity has brought me more freedom than I could have ever fathomed. I didn’t know what I was living for or aiming at but God truly lit up every shadow, broke down every wall, shattered every lie and came after me.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

As the world kicks and screams trying to shout their way to justice, peace and unity on their own terms right now, may the roots of our identity in Christ grow deeper each day together as one body; as one family.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.”

https://3130beloved.com
Previous

Living in a culture of…
Next

What happens when we do NOT feel God’s presence?