I am a Jesus pusher!!! When John the Baptist was imprisoned, Jesus left Judea to begin His Galilean ministry. He came to Nazareth, His home town. He preached in their synagogue, but found significant resistant among those He knew in the past. Their response was, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:23). They went to school with Him. They ran down the back alleys of Nazareth playing hide and seek. They were raised with the rumors concerning His real father. Now He comes to them as their Messiah. The scorn and ridicule of all the past years will not let them embrace Him. If they could have only seen Him as He really is! They would need to set aside their own cultural training, their personal opinions, and their prejudices. He came to Nazareth to give them a new revelation of Himself.
How often my culture and church tradition has shaped my opinion about Jesus. I have not seen Him as He really is. Jesus continually comes to my life with the revelation of Himself. All the false perceptions are overshadowed. He breaks through the hurts of my past to show Himself as true. I am discovering Jesus as He truly is. This is why I am a Jesus pusher!!! The chances are He is not as you may have thought Him to be. He wants to bring new revelation of Himself to you. This is not a theological adjustment, but an embrace of His person. Are you open to such a revelation? I am a Jesus pusher!!