Christ Focused

We have thought about how a true self-image is ruined by a self-demeaning and self-deceiving heart. Now we take it right down to the wire as we finish our short series, “Jesus Changed My Heart”. It's bad enough to demean and deceive ourselves, but what makes it worse, is that we thereby destroy ourselves.

We have seen that Jesus, if you are one of his followers, gives you a true self-image, and imparts to us self-worth, potential, and a destiny, beyond our wildest expectations. Accept this from Jesus, become his follower, and stop being dishonest with yourself.

These next few lessons that we will be sharing are about how wonderfully, radically, and positively the Lord Jesus Christ changes our hearts and lives. We are going to look at three conditions of the heart that Jesus is able to change when we accept him as Lord and Savior. The first condition is: The Self-Demeaning Heart —Our self-image must be a true one. 

The importance of self-esteem is taught clearly in the Bible. An unfruitful life can result from low self-esteem. A poor self-image makes a poor servant of God.

The PURPOSE of Jesus is to be YOUR SAVIOUR who can give you fellowship with God.  "To as many as received him, to those who believed in his name, to them he gave the right to become Children of God." (John 1:12) We conclude our GLORY series as we reach the Y in glory. Jesus YOUR Savior.

We now return to the three opening verses of John chapter one. In this lesson, we think of Jesus as "the Word". This title for Jesus seems a little strange and has an air of mystery about it. But the very name suggests, as we shall see, that Jesus was the one who explained the greatest mystery of all and bore witness to its truth.

The statement in John 1:14 which refers to Jesus as "the only begotten of the Father" is now the focus of our attention. We will split the term "only begotten" in two. First and foremost, we will think of how Jesus is God’s "only" Son. Then we will discuss the term "begotten".

This lesson comes to the heart of this GLORY series. At the heart of the gospel of Christ, we find the cross of Christ —or rather the death which God's Son suffered upon that cross as a sacrifice for all humankind.