Issue 560
If you want to achieve anything of importance there will come a time when you have to decide on the best method. In what ways will you handle this project?
If your project involves communication then you will need to be clear on your message. In fact your content will be central to the whole scheme.
Again, if what you want to achieve involves changing people’s experience, you will need to know what kind of change you are aiming for. How will it affect others on a daily basis?
If you are wise you will also have in mind the overall combined result of your methods, message and experience changers.
Conversations about these issues take place in all kinds of organizations every day. Schools, colleges, universities, trades, professions and businesses brainstorm their methods, shape their messages and review their goals as part of working practices. The clearer they are on all these dimensions the more effective they will be.
The Son of Man in the first century AD spent the first thirty years of his life gaining crystal clear clarity on all of these areas. He asked himself in what ways will I function using what methods? He shaped his message and then combined that with his methods to provoke and provide changed experiences in others, keeping in mind his overall aim and mission.
Yet for him, the methods, message and changes distilled and resolved in a unique fashion. As he grew he became crystal clear (don’t be afraid to realize he grew, Luke the doctor tells us he did in Luke 2:52) that these issues found their answer in none other but himself. He was the method, he was the message and he was the change.
He realized that central to everything he wanted to say was “himself”. He was (and is) the Truth. The method of achieving his goals was him. His very existence was the method because coming to earth and being the Son of Man was the way he was going to achieve. The thirty-three years he lived on earth formed his life and that would be the life that changed other lives.
To summarize, the Son of Man was his own way, his own truth, his own life. He was the key to his own success. So if you want to know his method or message or life changing power you have to know him, hear him, love him, follow him.
Can you see that this internal reality inside the Son of Man himself was the secret to the Son of Man doing what the Son of Man was born to do? I hope you can.
But there is something less obvious which you also need to see. Jesus goes to great lengths to describe a profound and mystical reality in which he explains that he will take up residence inside of you, become one with you, create a union with you.
Because that becomes reality for you and in you then there is a way, truth and life in you as well. When the way, the truth and the life has arrived inside of you then he empowers you with way, truth and life.
I can write this down but only the Holy Spirit of God can open your eyes. You can now, in a real sense (only because Jesus is in your life) say “I am my way, I am my truth, I am my life”.
Be very careful because this is not to take away from the glory of the Son of Man, it is to receive and celebrate the gift he has given to you.
Precisely because he wants you to find your way, live your truth and experience your life he has joined with you.
Other things make sense when you understand this. Why does Paul say, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). It is because when the way truth and life is embedded inside of you, you are empowered.
So when you consider the methods you will use, what message you will project or what ways you will change others the answer is “you”. That’s how it will work. You will be the way you do things, you will be what comes across and you will be the life you lead and the lives you touch.
Make no mistake about this. Whether you fully understand it or even agree with these thoughts this is what happens in your real world this week and every week It is a fact that what you do springs from who you are. It is a fact that how you do things emerges from who you are. And that the message which comes out of you originates from the truth inside of you. And of course the impact you have comes out of your inner life.
This will only make sense when the Son of Man is in you and you are submitted to and connected with him.
Remember the overall goal? Bringing everything to the Father.
Work well.
Geoff Shattock
BIBLE SECTION
John 14:5-7
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Luke 2:52
52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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