The Right Way To Approach Jesus
How you approach someone matters. Approach the wrong person in the wrong way, and you'll discover this truth this the hard way.
How you approach Jesus matters even more. Every one of us approaches Jesus with a specific posture or attitude. And in ways even more powerful than the words we use, how we approach Jesus reveals exactly how you feel about Jesus.
In the Book of Mark, there are three fascinating snapshots where we see different people approach Jesus with different postures, each problematic. And I think, if we're honest, we may realize that we're guilty of the same thing.
The first snapshot is in Mark 1:35-39. Jesus had healed a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and at sundown, when the Sabbath ended, people swarmed Peter's house where they were staying. Jesus healed many, and at some point, He went to sleep. We pick up the following day.
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, "Everyone is looking for you." And he said to them, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out." And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons (Mark 1:35-39).
Peter gets up, encounters the crowd, and can't find Jesus. When he does find Him, he explains the situation, implying that Jesus is in the wrong place. Peter wants Jesus back at his house to continue healing. But Jesus responds, "Pack up. We're moving out."
Peter approached Jesus with a posture of trying to shrink Him, wanting a me-sized Jesus.
Peter understood Jesus as a healer and teacher but didn't grasp the grand scale of Jesus' mission. Peter tried to confine Jesus to a box he could control. But here's the problem: Jesus does not fit neatly into the boxes we create. The scope of Jesus' rescue mission is epic and vast, far beyond our ability to fully understand.
Is there a personal aspect to Jesus' mission? Of course. But Jesus' mission is to redeem all who will come to believe in Him, not just take care of our needs. We sometimes want to shrink Jesus into a Jesus of our own making. But a Jesus of our own making isn't Jesus at all.
Fast forward to Mark 3:20-21. Jesus has healed the paralytic and a leper. He is preaching and teaching, and the crowds are everywhere. In His hometown (Jesus is likely in His family's home), the crowd is so large that they cannot even eat.
“Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’”
What is Jesus' family's posture? They're embarrassed by Him.
Jesus’ family thought He was out of His mind. What He was saying and doing was causing a scene. They wanted to control Him. They wanted Jesus to be more proper. There would come a day when Mary, Jesus' mother, and James, his brother, would fully realize who Jesus was. But not on this day.
Jesus' family approached Jesus with a posture of embarrassment. Do you approach Jesus with this posture? Does bringing up His name at work or in other social settings make you uncomfortable? Do you wish Jesus was more tame and less polarizing?
Jesus is many things, but He is not tame. Jesus didn't come to maintain the status quo. In Matthew 10:34-36 Jesus says,
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
Jesus is complex. He is the Prince of Peace and the Lamb of God. But the message of the Gospel is and always has been radical. The Gospel isn't comfortable to a world in sin. If our posture toward Jesus is one of embarrassment or trying to make Him tame, we need to repent. Jesus is good, perfectly so. But He will always be wonderfully divisive to the world.
Finally, in Mark 3:22-27, we see a third posture.
“And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.’"
The scribes were experts in the scriptures and the Law, aligned with the Temple establishment. They traveled from Jerusalem to Galilee to either validate or reject Jesus. They were sent by the ruling religious elite to see if Jesus was the kind of guy that would “play ball.” What was their response? They saw Jesus as a threat to their power and dismissed Him, saying He was possessed by Satan.
The scribes’ posture was a stop sign.
The scribes rejected Jesus because He didn't fit their system. This is the most dangerous posture. Many of us, whether intentionally or not, approach Jesus like the scribes, acting as if we own Him and attempting to block others' access to Him who don’t look, act, or worship like us. The beautiful news of the Gospel is that true life is available through Jesus to ALL who come to Him in repentance and faith. If we don't believe this, we should pack up and go home.
So, what is the correct posture with which to approach Jesus?
The only right posture with which to approach Jesus is complete and total surrender. That's it: open-handed, empty-armed, no agenda, nothing held back.
A Scottish theologian named John Baillie wrote a devotional classic, "A Diary of Private Prayer," in 1936. One of his prayers speaks to this brand of surrender most wonderfully:
"Let me then put back into Your hand all that You have given me, rededicating to Your service all the powers of my mind and body, all my worldly goods, all my influence with others. All these, O Father, are Yours to use as You will. All these are Yours, O Christ. All these are Yours, O Holy Spirit. Speak in my words today, think in my thoughts, and work in all my deeds."
Surrender. It's the most essential posture with which we can approach Jesus.
This article originally appeared in Volume 22 of my free newsletter, Good For You.
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