A Real Jesus?

I've been thinking about how Jesus was, or rather is fully God and yet at one point in HIStory was also fully man. God incarnate. Born of a virgin, a human and conceived by the Spirit of God making Him God in the flesh. And no whether you are oneness or believe in the Triune God, 3 persons in One God you still believe that Jesus while on this earth in human form was the One and only God-Man.

As followers of Christ we all serve a Real God who came to this earth as real baby to die for our sins and raise again on the 3rd day conquering death, hell and the grave ... a Real Jesus. So how real is Jesus to us? Seriously, how real? Now I know this is going to sound a little different to some but please continue to read the rest of my thoughts after this statement and it will hopefully make some sense to you.

I believe we have "deit-tized" Jesus to the point of where He has become less, or I should say "more" than a real Jesus to us.

Please understand I'm not being heretical here I'm just trying to bring Jesus "down to earth" (pardon the pun) for our sake. You see if we are to truly have a relationship with God the Father, Jesus His only Son and the Holy Spirit who resides inside of every believer then we must change the way we view the human aspect of Jesus. First yes He came to take our place on the cross and take the sins of the world so every man woman and child can have the opportunity to be forgiven and spend eternity with our Creator. And yes He came to display to us Gods agape unconditional love for us. But Jesus also came to experience every joy, pain, sorrow, temptation, loss and victory that we would or we will ever experience as humans on this earth, making Him human ... or making Him "real".

Again please understand I'm not denying the deity of Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God, for heavens sake and for my sake I would never ever do that. But what I am doing is trying to express the fact that Jesus let go of His own deity for the sake of creating a stronger relationship or bond between ourselves and God. This is the way Eugene Peterson puts it in Philippians 2.5-8 in the Message,

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

So what I'm saying is sometimes when we place Jesus on such a high pedestal (and rightly so) we forget that He came to not only relate to the human condition but He also came so "we" as the creation can relate to the Creator. And all I'm saying is maybe when we "deit-tize" Jesus' humanity in the wrong way we present and perceive Him as untouchable and intangible clouding our perspective of having a personal relationship with Him.

I know Jesus is the Son of God but when my feet ache from being on them too long I like to remember Jesus was human and He walked pretty much everywhere He went so He experienced this human frailty. When those times come when I'm facing and dreading an agenda or an event that I know is going to take place in my future I like to remember Jesus' humanity expressing itself in His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. And when I'm frustrated as a follower and as a Pastor seeing Christians just not get the following part of Jesus' message I think back to a human Jesus' frustration when dealing with the disciples.

Yes Jesus is fully God and yet we can't forget that He at one time was fully man making it possible for us to not only relate, deal with, and control our own humanity but to help us to have a relationship with God and His Spirit who is at work in and through us.

So the question that's only answerable from within our individual selves is do we serve an untouchable Jesus or a real Jesus?