Jesus Laid Down His Divinity
Everything in creation belongs to Jesus, He is head over all. He has authority and dominion over all things.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. (Col. 1:15-16, NKJV)
But He chose to put all this aside and live life on earth as a man, dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit and only capable of doing what He saw His Father doing.
John 5:19: Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (NKJV)
Often as children when we heard the story of Jesus and his disciples, we were asked to say which disciple we would like to be like when we grow up. Some would say they want to be like Peter because he had this or that quality, whilst others would say they want to be like John because of this or that reason, and so forth. But strictly speaking, this is almost an insult against the cross. Actually our position after we are born again is that our nature, our born again spirits, have exactly the same righteousness and virtue as Jesus. The following verse says that just as Jesus is, so are we in this world right now (and by method of deduction we can see that our bodies are not glorified yet and our minds have not been fully renewed yet, so it is talking about our born again spirit):
1 John 4:17: Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (NKJV, emphasis added)
The disciples did not receive the Holy Spirit until after Jesus was crucified. So we as Spirit filled believers have a great advantage over them (before they received the Holy Spirit) in that we have been given the authority and power of Jesus Christ (Luke 9:1).
Now if Jesus had come to earth as God, the miracles He did would still have been impressive. He did so many miracles in His three years of ministry that John wrote the following:
John 21:25: And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen. (NKJV)
And this was just the ministry of one person, fully yielded to the Spirit of God! Imagine the impact we could have if an entire generation of believers stood up in their rightful position of authority!
Now since Jesus came to earth as a man (setting aside His divinity and all His authority as God) taking on human flesh, and modelling the normal Christian life, this should actually make me dissatisfied with my life, knowing that there is more, knowing that there are realms of God accessible to us as God’s children that will allow us to walk as Jesus did. Yes, Jesus actually lived the type of life that every normal Christian should live. His purpose was to model what it could be like to walk this earth as a person fully yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit, and doing only what we see our Father doing. The miracles and works Jesus did was not to show us how incompetent we are, but to show us what we are actually capable of doing when we fully rely on God!! As Adolph Hitler had said: “When you tell a lie long enough, people will start to believe it”.The counterfeit has been around in the church for so long, that people have come to believe that the counterfeit is the genuine, and that the normal Christian life as portrayed by Jesus, is a far fetched dream, a pie in the sky.
He was Fully Man!
Now some would say “Well yes, Jesus came as a man, but He was still God”. Dear friend, let me tell you He put down ALL of His Godly divinity. He was FULLY man, but He simply lived completely surrendered to the Holy Spirit.
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Phil 2:5-8, NKJV)
Now if Jesus was still God, why did He cry “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross?
You see, for too long has the church been accustomed to having weekly meetings void of the power of God. People are afraid to surrender control and make room for the Holy Spirit in their meetings, because it might disrupt their smart, well orchestrated programs. And when we see things happen in our meetings that we don’t understand, we become intimidated and form doctrines that try to explain them, instead of just telling our minds to take a holiday and accept that mystery is often just as glorious as revelation. God is sovereign and His ways are far above our ways.
When we realize just how much He loves us, we would trust Him and know His thoughts towards us are always love, and we wouldn’t care to just let go and let God.