One of the major difficulties encountered by Christians is recognizing the living Jesus.
We know that Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter morning, and that His Spirit remains in our world as He had promised (Luke 24:16-24). Yet we fail to connect His Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost in some versions, with the Jesus alive among us. In fact, once we have accepted Him into our lives, He lives within us (John 17:23). This is the cause of the pleasant warm feeling within our bodies as we pray to Him.
Our problem is understandable. Even His friends did not recognize Him following the resurrection (Luke 24:16). They walked with Him to Emmaus, but not until He broke bread in one of their homes did they recognize him. Then "He left there and was taken up into heaven" (Luke 24:51 NIV). Because He disappeared and appeared several times, His resurrected physical body had obviously been changed. Thomas touched His body of "flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39) yet He disappeared from sight while they sat at the table (Luke 24:31).
Many churches do not recognize the living Jesus who attends their services. He promised that "where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them" (Matt 18:20 NIV), and Jesus always keeps His appointments! When unrecognized, His Spirit is unable to move freely in their services.
Not only did Jesus appear to the New Testament Christians, but He has appeared in physical form to many in our day. For instance, Catherine Marshall, author of 'A Man Called Peter', tells of Jesus' appearance beside her bed to heal her of tuberculosis. Unbelievers twist and distort such accounts, mixing them with stories of unholy spirits.
Although most of us have not seen Jesus in physical form, we can feel His presence after we have asked Him to live in us. Even then, it is difficult for we humans to realize that this warmth in our bodies is truly that of Jesus himself.
We serve one God, but a God with three distance personalities. He is Father, He is Son, and Holy Spirit - yet He is one!
If we can get this truth through our dull senses, the Christian faith becomes very simple, One God rules heaven and earth, the One who will rule the world as King. Only at the end of the Bible do the many faces of God blend into one. He is the true Messiah for whom the Jews have waited so long.
Are you able to recognize Jesus? Or are you like those at the empty tomb who did not believe because "their words seemed to them like nonsense"? (Luke 24:11 NIV)
© 1999, Doreen Palmer