{"id":16363,"date":"2018-01-15T09:46:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T14:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16363"},"modified":"2018-01-15T09:54:59","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T14:54:59","slug":"jesus-of-nazareth-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16363","title":{"rendered":"Jesus of Nazareth: Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Love Needs a Face<\/p>\n<p>Monday, January 15, 2018<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gFRfg-vKPAc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIt was probably St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1182-1226) who first brought attention to the humanity of Jesus within organized Christianity. During its first thousand years, the Church was mainly concerned with proving that Jesus was God. Prior to St. Francis, paintings of Jesus largely emphasized Jesus\u2019 divinity, as they still do in most Eastern icons. Francis is said to have created the first live nativity scene. Before the thirteenth century, Christmas was no big deal. The emphasis was on the high holy days of Holy Week and Easter, as it seems it should be. But for Francis, incarnation was already redemption. For God to become a human being among the poor, born in a stable among the animals, meant that it\u2019s good to be a human being, that flesh is good, and that the world is good\u2014in its most simple and humble forms.<br \/>\nIn Jesus, God was given a face and a heart. God became someone we could love. While God can be described as a moral force, as consciousness, and as high vibrational energy, the truth is, we don\u2019t (or can\u2019t?) fall in love with abstractions. So God became a person \u201cthat we could hear, see with our eyes, look at, and touch with our hands\u201d (1 John 1:1). The brilliant Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) said the only thing that really converts people is \u201can encounter with the face of the other,\u201d [1] and I think he learned that from his own Hebrew Scriptures.<br \/>\nWhen the face of the other (especially the suffering face) is received and empathized with, it leads to transformation of our whole being. It creates a moral demand on our heart that is far more compelling than laws. Just giving people commandments on tablets of stone doesn\u2019t change the heart. It may steel the will, but it doesn\u2019t soften the heart like an I-Thou encounter can. Many of the Christian mystics talk about seeing the divine face or falling in love with the face of Jesus. We are mirrored into life, not by concepts, but by faces delighting in us, giving us the beloved self-image we can\u2019t give to ourselves. Love is the gaze that does us in! How blessed are those who get it early and receive it deeply. (There is that dialogue of self-disclosure and response again!)<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________<\/p>\n<div class=\"row title-row\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"utmost-devo-title col col-sm-12 col-xs-12\">\n<h2 class=\"entry-title\">Do You Walk In White?<\/h2>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><strong>We were buried with Him\u2026that just as Christ was raised from the dead\u2026even so we also should walk in newness of life. \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Romans+6%3A4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Romans 6:4<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"row entry-meta\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<div class=\"top-sharing\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"top-rule\">No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a \u201cwhite funeral\u201d \u2014 the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a \u201cwhite funeral,\u201d a death with only one resurrection\u2014 a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose\u2014 to be a witness for Him.<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you <em>really<\/em> experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying\u2014 being \u201cbaptized into His death\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Romans+6:3\">Romans 6:3<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Have you had your \u201cwhite funeral,\u201d or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, \u201cYes, it was then, at my \u2018white funeral,\u2019 that I made an agreement with God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the will of God, your sanctification\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+Thessalonians+4:3\">1 Thessalonians 4:3<\/a>). Once you truly realize this is God\u2019s will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that \u201cwhite funeral\u201d now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love Needs a Face Monday, January 15, 2018 It was probably St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1182-1226) who first brought attention to the humanity of Jesus within organized Christianity. During its first thousand years, the Church was mainly concerned with proving that Jesus was God. Prior to St. Francis, paintings of Jesus largely emphasized Jesus\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16363"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16367,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16363\/revisions\/16367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}