Jesus

*JESUS - also see CHRIST, CONSCIOUSNESS, MESSIAH, WAY, TRUTH, LIFE, AM, MYSTIC, ENLIGHTENMENT, SAVIOR, GOD, TRINITY, SAINT, PROPHET, LORD, MASTER, GURU

Definition: Yeshua - yah means "the One Nameless Being" and shua means "who restores"

Deepra Chopra identifies 3 Jesuses: historical, church, and the mystical teacher who set out to transform the world. This Jesus is "The Christ We Cannot Ignore" who lives in our own awareness at the level of God-consciousness, who exists beyond time and yet within each of us. The real Jesus is available today in his wisdom teachings, instead of relying on faith alone. Jesus was very clear about the essentials of the spiritual life and they are in his teachings:

- Meditation: Going within to contact the silent mind

- Contemplation: Reflecting on the truth

- Revelation: Receiving spiritual insight

- Prayer: Asking for higher guidance

- Grace: Taking God into one's heart

- Love: Participating in divine love

- Faith: Believing in a higher reality

- Salvation: Realizing that you have a place in higher reality

- Unity: Becoming one with God (The Third Jesus, Book Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat)

To a mystic "Jesus is my Savior" means "Jesus taught me the way that I myself must follow for my salvation." (Further, p126)

See Unity Views of Jesus as way-shower. (http://www.unityvictoria.ca/views/jesus.html)

The book "I Love Jesus, I Hate Christianity" suggests a number of practical steps that can revitalize Christianity, including restoring Jesus as an example to follow instead of an idol to worship. (Review by Shangra-la Bookstore)

For a Christian to refer to themself as "more spiritual than religious" implies relative deprecation of rules, rituals, and tradition while preferring an intimate relationship with God and/or talking to Him as one's best friend. Their basis for this belief is that Jesus Christ came to free man from those rules, rituals, and traditions, giving them the ability to "walk in the spirit" thus maintaining a "Christian" lifestyle through that one-to-one relationship with God. Some excellent resources that further explain the "spiritual Christian" are found in the Bible, Gospel of John 4:24 for example. (Wikipedia, Spirituality)

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. [1 Timothy 2:5,6 NASB] This is a relationship that is available only to those who welcome Christ's sacrifice on their behalf. In other words, Christ's sacrifice is applied to our rebellion and failures (yes, all of them) ONLY when we consciously receive what He has given. (http://www.unionchurch.com/archive/061800.html)

Valentinus and other Christian gnostics identified Jesus as the Savior, a spirit sent from the true God into the material world to liberate the souls trapped there. In the early church, John's reference to Jesus as the eternal Logos was a popular definition of Jesus, defeating the rival view that Jesus had been born a man but had been adopted as God's Son. The gospel's description of Jesus' divinity was fundamental to the developing doctrine of the Trinity. John focuses on Jesus' mission to bring the Logos ("Word", "Wisdom", "Reason" or "Rationality") to his disciples. John adapts the doctrine of the Logos, God's creative principle, from Philo, a 1st-century Hellenized Jew.[3] Philo, in turn, had adopted the term Logos from Greek philosophy, using it in place of the Hebrew concept of Wisdom (sophia) as the intermediary between the transcendent Creator and the material world. John portrays Jesus Christ as "a brief manifestation of the eternal Word, whose immortal spirit remains ever-present with the believing Christian."[35] Some critics have maintained that the opening Hymn to the Word declares that the Logos is "god" or "a god" (Greek: theos, without the article) and was with "God" (Greek: pros ton theon), but not that the Logos is God (Greek: ho theos).[38][39] Jesus pre-exists birth as the Word (Logos). This origin and action resemble a gnostic aeon (emanation from God) being sent from the pleroma (region of light) to give humans the knowledge they need to ascend to the pleroma themselves. (WikiPedia, Gospel of John)

Jesus' earthly name is Jesus (savior), but spiritual name is Emmanual ("God with us"). God really is with us spiritually, for example, our years are AD, we have faith and hope in the future, we try to act morally and ethically, we love and are loved (and God is love). (Randy)

Jesus was the "Ladder come down from heaven" (OT type was Jacob's) so that we may climb it to reach heaven. (Randy)

Jesus is the "Kinsman redeemer" (see OT) who gives us the jubilee year. (Randy)

Jesus was fully human and fully divine.

We find in JESUS a key that yields meaning, a guide to VALUE and TRUTH that is confirmed as we live our lives. Because his example and his teachings first grab us and then prove themselves over time. Becuase we find that the attitude, the FAITH, embodied in him leads to right relationship. And because we know, in our deepest heart of hearts, that his call to LOVE and SERVICE is the call to that which is RIGHT and true in a way that TRANSCENDS all other rights and all other truths. This is why we confess JESUS as the CHRIST. (Common Sense, p146)

We always compare ourselves to others, but in the end it will be how we are compared to Jesus. (PK, 6/7/96)