Sallman's Head of Christ

Have you ever seen this painting? When I recently saw an article about its origins in Christian History magazine, it caught my eye. When I was a little boy, my parents gave me a children’s Bible with pictures in it, including this one of Jesus.

My earliest memories of thoughts about the Lord always included this image of Him in my mind. When I prayed, I would often imagine this was the person that I was talking to. To me, this is what He looked like, this was the “real” Jesus.

I must admit, though, that it created a bit of a conflict in my young mind when I heard preachers say that truly devout Christians should not wear a beard or have long hair like those hippies that were beginning to pop up everywhere outside my church world in the sixties and early seventies. The picture in my Bible seemed to prove that Jesus was an exception to some of their hard and fast rules.

Processing that apparent contradiction was the first of many steps in my life-long journey to understand and believe the things God's Word says about Him, even at the expense of some things I had been told about Him by some very well meaning, Christ-loving people. An important part of that dynamic was coming to realize there might be a difference between some things I had been told about the Bible and things the Bible actually said, that is to say, between some things I thought were in the Bible and those that really were in the Bible...!

As I have traveled around the world, I have been amazed to discover how many Christians are walking down a similar pathway. For some, the journey began when they came to understand that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is just as real and available now as it was 2,000 years ago, in spite of the fact that they had been taught that miracles simply do not happen today. For others, it started when they discovered there were many sincere, devoted followers of Jesus who were quite happily a part of denominations they had always been taught to view with distrust, suspicion, or even disdain. For still more, the turning point came when they realized there were people who really did know and love God, but who had never been baptized with the formula they had been taught was necessary for salvation. And on and on the list could go...

Embarking on such a search for truth can be a very difficult thing to do, especially if your study of Scripture leads you to different conclusions than those held by some of the godliest people you have ever known. This is particularly true if you come to disagree on certain points with the very people who led you to the Lord, or first taught you about Him, or were instrumental in helping you step out in faith to pursue your destiny, and yet, Jesus calls each of us to be willing to do this very thing,

"32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:32-39, NIV)

As they would say in the Czech Republic, where Teresa and I have often been privileged to minister, “That is strong coffee...!” I am so glad Christ promised in that last sentence to reward us with vibrant, true spiritual life if following Him ever costs us friendships we hold dear. Thankfully, God created humans with the ability to form relationships and He places a very high value on them. He does not lightly call us to sever them, but works very hard to redeem them, even to the point of promising to save all our “house” if we place our faith in Jesus.

Allowing God to take you places you have never been, places far beyond where anyone around you has ever been, can not only be costly on a relational level, but it can also be spiritually dangerous unless you sail such uncharted seas with the Bible in in your hand as a compass. The infallible Word of God will never lead you away from God or His truth, but will always take you deeper in your knowledge of Him. As we follow on to know the Lord more fully, let’s be like the Berean Christians who heard the Apostle Paul preach and “...received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)