Now I Lay Me Down Alone: Rescue from the Grief Gorge

By David Lee

No one ever adequately prepares for the death of a loved one. Grieving can stun the soul and turn one's world upside down. This book is specifically sculpted to walk the grief journey alongside the sufferer. It highlights spousal loss but covers a gamut of other situations. The answers are not swift and easy, but the book will lead to the place of safety and rest. There is One who understands the turmoil of pain, and He died in the loneliest place imaginable. But His victory over the heaviness of dying can give unparalleled hope and relief to the one wounded by loss. Would you be willing to take the journey with someone who knows your hurt and offers you His strong hand?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642581164

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Would Jesus Ever Become a Christian

Answering the Soul’s Life Question

David R. Lee

Copyright © 2018 David R. Lee

All rights reserved

First Edition

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64258-478-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64258-479-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Read This First, Then Read the Book

Jesus is the most popular and unpopular name in the world. Millions still ask, Who is He? Perhaps, more books have been written about Him than on the themes of love or crime. Yet, when two or ten or a hundred people are asked to describe Him, each answer will be different.

There is Jesus, the Person He really is.

Next, there are Christians, who are supposed to be devoted to Him and resemble Him in speech and behavior.

And there is Christianity, the movement or category that includes all historical associations with His name.

The true Jesus is in Himself incomprehensible. Jesus asserted Himself to be beyond human comprehension in terms of His relation to His Father. He is quoted in the New Testament as saying, I proceeded forth and have come from God . . . I do know God and keep His word (John 8:42, 55). We have sparse information about Him, except through the Scriptures and several nonbiblical historical references. What we do know of His authentic Person has been divinely revealed to us in Scripture, which is our most reliable source. We have record of twenty to thirty other historical sources, which also refer to Him. To be a Christian, I must believe that the Scriptures we have actually came from God, and all that is said in them is absolutely true. A mere secular historical reference may unload some factual data, but being a Christian is a faith enterprise, and the Bible is a collection of supernatural writings about Jesus, which true Christians believe. Events not common to the process of nature are recorded. Numerous prophetic utterances well in advance of their actual fulfillment are presented as true as all other logical statements. A log of miracles attributed to divine activity are remembered historically. The forty writers were humans, but the content given to them was dispensed from God, not dictated word for word but thoroughly and authentically infused in them, as they wrote.

Just as our American history books are being revised to accommodate the opinions and biases of contemporary thinkers, the Bible has been attacked by scholars, who want to revise what was originally intended, because the nonbelieving skeptic wants reasons for his doubts. The believer, the one who has investigated the facts and has come to internalize the truth, does not have to doubt the reasons.

But Scripture cannot be altered to satiate the skeptic, and what is said of Jesus in Scripture is absolutely true, and I can realize who Jesus is from what is written. It is not simply my belief in the Bible that makes it true for me. The Bible has proved itself emphatically that it is reliable historically and accurately throughout the ages. Archeology has not contradicted the assertions of the Bible but has affirmed what has been written as accurate. What I have come to know about Jesus through the Bible has proved to be every word complete and authentic. What I have studied about the Savior from Scripture has satisfied my intellect and my soul.

It is of immeasurable importance that true Christians present to the inquisitive secular world as clear and true a portrait of Christ of what the Scriptures record of Him. As Jesus entered the world from heaven and dwelt in our midst, He brought to us a glimpse of God the Father, who is replete with grace and truth. That insightful image must be preserved in the life and character of those committed to Him. The historical documents of Jesus’s life in Palestine give plenty of authentic information about Him so that we can be positively assured of our own salvation, how to practice holy living, and how to be preserved as true children of God.

But there is so much more of Jesus to know, and I believe that in knowing Him personally as a Christian, I have come to understand Him much better, for He is real in my life. Knowledge of Him is a matter of faith. I have seen Him at work in me, in my world, and in the Church, and on the mission field, so my faith goes deep.

Yet all who call themselves Christians should have a similar familiar picture of Him, but they don’t. From one church to another, Jesus is either a really good guy, a moral concept, a wonderful teacher, divine in the sense of mostly spiritual, a prophet, God Himself, or some historical figure to be mingled among other famous individuals. Some treat Him as a religious leader, but Jesus castigated the religion of His day. He did not form a religion. He did not come to earth to set one up but to seek and save those who are lost, according to His own words. He promised to establish His Church, and the people who comprise it are, by definition, the called-out ones. He put Himself in the position of a groom and described His followers as His bride, as we read in His parables. He told His followers that He was going away to prepare a place, where someday they would join Him forever, which He called His Father’s house. That sounds like a family setup.

Christians are to be replicas of Him, little icons of Christ. But they represent Him in such diverse lifestyles and opinions that if the outside-the-faith world wants to know who Jesus is, it is entirely confused. Worse, Christianity is a movement that goes down in history books, but the record mainly depicts the formalized political and social conglomerate that had some place or impact on events concurrent with society. Christianity seems to appear as a newsworthy report, only when useful to the records of historians. But such a scantily clad allusion does not tell the real story of the little churches, which have met in the rills and moors of the countryside faithfully for years upon end. It does not inform of the believers who had to hide underground in order to worship and read the Bible, because tyrannical governments persecuted them and would behead or burn them. It says little of the epic battles and costly blood that saturated the ground in defense of the Christian faith, except to slur the character of those who sacrificed their very lives and call them aggressive inquisitionists. It does not speak much of the praying dad or mother who never made headlines but remained devoted to Jesus until death took them to heaven.

What have been enveloped of the movement in the annals of history books are the bizarre cults, the snake handlers, warmonger crusaders, the Bible-less groups that met merely for tax exemption, the staunch love-depleted legalists, and those who use the name of Jesus with no attention to bad behavior. Ordinarily excluded from the textbooks are the colleges and universities established by Christians, the numerous schools and hospitals, rescue organizations, counseling centers, orphanages, relief efforts, prison reform units, and drug and alcohol rehab agencies, to cite a few charitable missions.

Christianity contains some very favorable features, but ordinarily what gets reported is something outlandish that causes society to scowl. A name-brand Christian leader who gets caught with his hand in an immoral cookie jar seizes the evening report. Some Christian-based organizations that are careless or corrupt with finances undergo criminal investigation from the FBI or IRS and up TV ratings. A person can even present a biblical viewpoint on sexual issues or comment in support of the life of the unborn, in a country that champions freedom of speech and tolerance, and immediately be doused with severe ostracism by the media. Christianity gets blamed, and Jesus receives another black eye.

Christians do sometimes trip and fall. They are not excused for wrong behavior. Every person is accountable for the deeds done in the body and will answer to God eventually. The non-Christian critic will intercept every discrepancy and prove to all listeners that Jesus is a sham. This judgment and sentencing of Christians by non-Christians is such hypocrisy because the secular world lives by the rules of individuality, not of any absolute standard. Society will take away guns from those who want to protect themselves and kill one million babies in the womb every year, even harvest fetal organs. Where’s the fairness?

So a Christian in society, like every other ordinary citizen with beliefs, should have that same freedom to live by his or her individual standards and not be condemned. But the reality to the Christian is that God is the absolute standard for behavior, and He will bring into account wrong and its consequences. The true Christian is very aware that sin is the breach of the moral law of God. The believer lives by the rule of biblical Scripture, and sin offends it. Such behavior may overlap society’s laws, and breaking the laws of the land will require punishment by society. Those doing the criticizing break their own standards repeatedly every day, but they feel justified in passing judgment on Christians. The only truth of this inconsistency is that Christians should try to represent the real Jesus. When they do not, the unconvinced world remains unconvinced of His true Person.

Everyone needs to know the true Jesus of the Bible. Many have found Him, and their lives have been so remade by Him that they desire diligently to love and serve Him all their days. Many others want to know Jesus, but the way that they search for Him is through the lives of those who claim to know Him. When someone professes to be a Christian but merely dabbles in it or distorts the meaning of Jesus by behaving badly, the one curious about Him sees the distortion and bypasses His inestimable value. True Christians must give an authentic representation of Jesus, at least live out as much as they know of Him, or irreparable damage will ensue. It is not Christians that hold the truth intrinsically in their being but Jesus Himself. If a person honestly wants to see what belonging to Jesus means, that inquisitor must investigate Jesus.

A certain percentage of the world’s population believes in God but holds no specific faith in Jesus. These are God-ians but not Christians. Jesus taught quite directly that, if one believes in the Father (God), believe also in Him. Theism, adherence to God, needs adherence to Jesus too. You believe in God, believe also in Me. I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father (God), except through Me. Jesus made that pronouncement very clear, as recorded in John 14:6. In our world, there are those who are born into a religion and refuse to know any other way. Some, without a particular faith, search for a solution to their being and embrace whatever persuades them. Many of the masses simply ignore Jesus altogether, preferring to establish their own way, irrespective of the necessary facts of faith in Jesus that the Bible may present.

So what we have is the pure and undiluted Jesus. We have diverse and fallible Christians and the blotchy secular spin, depicting believers and Jesus. And the perception of Christianity, as reported and recorded, lacks any credibility when people who do not know or believe in Jesus are amalgamated into a secular, blurred view of the historical movement. To use the name of Jesus as a tag for one’s own interest is not Christian. Often people will say, when asked if they are Christian, I’m not really a religious person, but I know there must be something out there. Call it what you will, because things didn’t just happen. That is no real belief, and certainly is not Christian. It isn’t even close. It is like saying, I think I know what ice cream is, because I’ve been told it’s something cold. I’ve never really seen it or tasted it, but I’d probably recognize it. Liquid nitrogen is cold too. Another might say, Am I a Christian? Well, I’m not a pagan. People do not truly believe in Jesus, simply because they do not believe in anything else.

Christianity is not a belief that everything fun is forbidden. Many reject Jesus because they assume that their freedom is thwarted. They insist that freedom is an entitlement. But Jesus taught that it is truth that sets people free. He claimed that when He, as the Truth from God, sets people free, they are indeed liberated. Freedom is not every individual choosing to do whatever one delights in doing, but choosing to do what is right.

Yet, even on application forms or surveys, the categories might ask for religious affiliation. If people are not Jewish, Muslim, or other, they might check the Christian blank, which makes them part of Christianity.

I hear in my head the sound of the apostle Paul, who had religion popping out of his ears, a ringleader in destroying anything associated with Jesus. He knew nothing of Him until intercepted by the Lord Himself. I hear him say, having been entirely converted and transformed by the Jesus he tried to annihilate, I want to know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, even if it costs me my life (Philippians 3:10).

This book I am writing is not taken from the perception of many other Christians so that I form an eclectic picture and call it Jesus. Nor am I referencing the many tomes describing Christendom from secular sources. Yet coming to my portrait of Jesus does not happen without study. We all believe something because we have been taught, and resources must be sought to clarify what we know and further learn. I want to explain, the best I know how, who Jesus is to me. I want to describe what I have learned of Him personally and actually over many years. Yes, I am giving my own opinions, and I admit readily that I am a most blatant sinner, whom Jesus has touched and forgiven, and I want to divulge His dealings with me. I join the galaxies of fallible people, who have written about Him. My inaccuracies may be many, but in my most sincere thoughts, I want others to know what I have found.

Everyone should write a book about Jesus. Those who do not know Him have no book to write. But everyone should come to know Him and subsequently write of Him. This manuscript is not a theological treatise but a subjective one, though theology is certainly intact in it. I am using mainly Scriptural references or blips of lingering mental notes from what I have heard other teachers say. Many impressions have been left over the years of the valuable, and not-so-valuable, voices and comments about Him delivered to me. I am surely jaundiced by the myriad of messages, lessons, studies, and sermons of the past. Most of those images will not evaporate if I try to erase them and start over. Never can I eradicate the millions of meaningful occasions when He and I have been in communication. I am reflecting now in this script on what I have come to understand in days and years past of Jesus Christ, but also am trying to gain a further comprehension of His dealings with me at present. I hope to assimilate much more as I continue to ponder Him. So here’s my version of the story.

Chapter 1

Jesus, As I Know Him

What Jesus Looks Like to Me

I try to picture a face of Jesus, but it comes out vague. I see a man, but He looks much like a Caucasian, brown bearded, somewhere around six feet two, trim, strong, but not too muscular. This is probably erroneous to begin with, for Middle Eastern complexion is ordinarily swarthy and hair darker. He is lean and fibrous from His carpentry trade, but He doesn’t look like He has been pumping iron in the gym. His auburn brownish hair drapes to His shoulders and turns outward. He looks clean, and so are His clothes. I’ve seen many renderings of Him from artists who have imagined His looks. To me, He is not the woman with a beard. Neither do I picture Him as a Hollywood-looking lumberjack in a bathrobe. And certainly He did not have a cantaloupe around His head, as Byzantine artists attempted to make Him look holy. I am attempting to discard those sketches so that I can form my own impression.

For me, He wears a white tunic to the knees and dons a pair of leather sandals. His voice is average male, in between tenor and bass, but clear. He does not sound like a radio announcer or a preacher. He can project His voice when He needs to. But when He speaks, it is neither harsh nor irritating. To friends, He has a gentle maleness; to crowds around Him, He communicates forthrightly yet not overdramatically. People can listen to Him for hours without becoming weary.

Strange, I hear Him in English, but that is certainly misconstrued. He was Jewish and spoke Hebrew, koine (common) Greek, and occasionally Aramaic. One of the designations above His head on the cross in reference to His title as King of the Jews was Latin. Undoubtedly, as Latin was used formally by the Romans, surely He was conversed in it too. However, when believers of all nationalities read of Him and perceive His voice, I feel that they hear Him in their native language.

When He speaks to His chosen disciples—James, John, Matthew, Bartholomew, and the rest—I think that His words apply to me also. It is as if I am there at His disciple sessions, but, naturally, I am removed by centuries. Nevertheless, when He says to Peter, Be humble, I take those words to heart, for I am a follower in a different era. I consider myself a disciple, not nearly in the category of the originals by light-years but an active recipient of His love and words.

Jesus Is Deity

Jesus is infinitely and authentically God. I pray to Him as God. I worship Him as God. He is as incomprehensible as God the Sovereign Heavenly Father. Jesus appeared on our planet but did not come about by an evolutionary process. The theory of evolution came about by imagination and deduction. The Jesus presented to us came about by revelation and authentication. No one was in the beginning to see man come about, except God. Jesus is described in the Bible as the Creator of all things. He cannot be the Creator and evolve from something that He created. It makes no sense that we came about from a monkey-esque figure, either, since we are told by the same revelation that mankind was formed in God’s image. Even if that image is not physical but emotional and moral, God does not scratch Himself and eat bananas. It is either true that Jesus is God, or He is not God. It likewise means that if He is God, there aren’t any other gods who created, who are alive and all-powerful, who are to be worshiped, or even described as real, because they are not. There are not two competing Gods. Other gods are invented by the imagination of people. Not to believe that God is God and Jesus is also God means that the Bible must be thrown away, and people will have to imagine something else.

I read recently a professor’s view that Christianity is not really about the person of Jesus but about the behavior of those who call themselves Christian. But true Christianity is all about Jesus, His real Person as God. Take away the truth about Jesus, and there is no Christianity. Being Christlike has no meaning if there is no Christ to be like.

Questions and Mysteries about Jesus

Read the writings about Him in our Bible, and we are full of questions. How much did He know as a baby? Were His first spoken words the infant’s Mama and Dad-da, or were they more accurate to the language of an adult? Why did He choose one disciple who was a devil from the outset? Why did He ask the Father if the cup had to pass from Him, since He is all knowing and was cognizant that there was no other way except through the path of the cross? Surely He had His facts straight before He left heaven for earth. Of the words Jesus spoke, we have pieces of speeches and certainly but a splash from the ocean of His wisdom and knowledge. Of the wonders He performed, all the world’s books could not contain them. Seemingly, all the actions of Jesus recorded in Scripture have purpose, meaning, and moral.

Even when He slept in the boat, that slumbering fact alone can be seen as His confidence against all threats of nature unbounded. He could sleep, which as a human He needed; but if a mountain collapsed upon Him, it would not disturb Him. He had unvanquished fearlessness before all men, friend or foe. It even appears, in my mind, that He planned the storm on Lake Galilee as a test of mettle for those in the boat with Him. He rose calmly amid the frenetic screams of the others and whispered to the sea a command that took the air out of the wind and made the waters into a satin-covered waterbed. The immediate moral was to trust natural cause to this man, but the effect was to leave His observers in wonder that would frighten them away from their own pride and serve to replace doubts with reasons to believe in Him.

He wept over Jerusalem, the city of God. It was God’s favorite place on earth. Jesus found many followers there, waving fronds of palms, lauding Him with psalms. They tried to crown Him king according to their own delights, but He had to reject that effort for a grander laurel later. Yet He found disturbance in Jerusalem, a place of biblical disregard, self-indulgent religiosity, and ignorance. Disturbances of no equal were found, of all places, in the temple of His holy presence. Laws were corrupted, prophecies perverted or ignored, the sanctuary had become a supermarket, and history was turned into histrionics.

I am trying to remember specific miracles performed by Jesus in Jerusalem. At Passover, He went to Jerusalem and enacted many miracles, which are not explained in detail. But He had to leave and venture back toward Galilee due to unbelief. Woes were pronounced on Bethsaida and Chorazin by Jesus, for if the miracles done in Tyre and Sidon had been done in those towns, they would have repented and should have believed in Him. Water-to-wine was in Cana of Galilee, raising Lazarus was in Bethany near Jerusalem. He walked on the lake in Galilee up north. Yes, He was transfigured on Olivet on the periphery of Jerusalem, but that was a rendezvous with Elijah and Moses for the benefit of three men of His future apostolic charge. In the garden of Gethsemane, He reattached the severed ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant, after Peter had whacked it off in an attempt of foolish bravado to save Jesus from being seized by the arresting soldiers. That action of Jesus seemed more akin to a kind, humanitarian response than an object lesson with a spiritual maxim. Undoubtedly, those present to observe had to be stricken with His power to heal. Surely the Roman soldiers had to wonder who they were taking into custody. Especially was this true when He asked, Whom are you seeking?

They commanded, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus stepped forward and merely affirmed, I am.

And all the soldiers fell backward, stumbling with sword, shield, and spear to the shadowy night ground, like a cyclone hit them head-on. What the . . .? Judas must have shuddered at the reality of the One he had just betrayed.

The Greatest Miracle

But Jesus saved the ultimate miracle for God’s city, just outside the gates on a slope called Golgotha. From a garden cave close to His place of execution, He bolted from His grave, though humanly dead for three days. The Father is truly credited with that miracle, but Jesus had said that He had the power to lay down His own life and take it up again (John 10:18). Father God, in accordance with Son God, performed these feats, just as Jesus lifted up the baskets to heaven and asked His Father to multiply the bread for five thousand people, four thousand on another occasion. The Father raised Jesus from the crypt, but Jesus warned, Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days, speaking of His own physical body (John 2:19).

God Interacting with Himself

The Triune God works cooperatively within Himself in the accomplishment of the divine plan. Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit to His disciples. He said He would pray to the Father, and He would send the Spirit. But Jesus had the Holy Spirit upon Him when He retreated from the baptismal waters of the Jordan River, for it was there that the Father’s voice was heard from heaven, declaring Him to be His beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, landing upon His head or shoulder.

Luke, the gospel writer, records an interesting account of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. He describes that the Holy Spirit came in bodily shape or form upon Jesus. The typical translation by most is that a dove landed upon His shoulder, as if the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove. That may be the true rendering, and the appearing was more symbolic than anything else. The dove may represent peace or life. Romans 8:6 states that living by the flesh is death, but living by the Spirit is life and peace.

Noah received the dove that he had sent out (when the floodwaters receded), carrying an olive twig in its beak upon returning. He knew then that there was life outside the ark after the flood. My take is that the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus and entered His shape, that is, He descended, as a dove might do to land after flying, and filled Him completely throughout. The Spirit had to be visible enough for the gospel writers to observe and describe what they saw of Him. Jesus, the Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit have always been connected. But this descent upon Jesus was a demonstration for the public of the validity of His divinity. Any follower today of Jesus also must have this Holy Spirit within to perform any spiritual work at all.

From there, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the Judean badlands to be tempted by Satan for forty consecutive days, and He fasted the entire time. It has been said that a strong person can survive around forty days without food, but then the body begins to collapse from starvation. Perhaps, the human aspect of Jesus was at that crossover.

Finally, after Jesus withstood this enemy, Satan departed, and angels brought Him food. Then the Spirit guided Him back to Nazareth in the north, where one day He decided to enter the synagogue. At that session, He read from Isaiah and personalized the passage. Quoting Isaiah 61:1-2, Jesus told that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to preach the gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, offer liberty to captives, give sight to the blind, set at liberty the oppressed, and proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Naturally, we picture conversational interaction between Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

But Jesus seemingly does not outright pray to Him, as He does to the Heavenly Father. However, He told His disciples that He would send another Comforter to them, One who duplicated Himself. Jesus was a supreme personal Comforter, filled with the godly Spirit, and that very Holy Spirit upon Him would succeed Jesus as the believer’s companion Comforter. It is intriguing to me that the Holy Spirit was the Comforter to Jesus, Himself a Comforter, in the desert. The Persons of the Godhead so depend upon and minister to each other.

The Person of the Holy Spirit was not new at Pentecost, after Jesus had returned to heaven. In the beginning, the Spirit moved upon the waters at creation (Genesis 1:2). David pled that God would not remove His Holy Spirit from him, after the Bathsheba and Uriah incident (Psalm 51:11). And John the Baptizer promised that Jesus would baptize those who had repented with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8). Ezekiel literally saw the Spirit exit the precincts of the temple. The Holy Spirit was not foreign or the One left out. This divine Person would exclusively succeed Jesus as the One of God manifestly presented to the Church. But the New Testament biographies of Jesus do not feature the same outward interaction with the Spirit as with the Father.

You can be positive that no rivalry exists amid the Godhead. God has been described as all wise, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Thus, the Triune God is the perfect relational triangle. In fact, the Trinity members are the celestial model for the believer, who relates internally to oneself, with God, and with others of faith. First John 4:21 records that the person who says He loves God must also love his brother. Loving God and loving others is the perfect triangular model established by God for the follower of Jesus. Otherwise, there is no true Christianity. Jesus expressed how the Father loves the Son, and vice versa. As Jesus, having completed His earthly commission, promised the Holy Spirit as His successor, it was but God going up as the Son, and God coming down again as the Spirit to visit man.

God Ever Present in the World

Recall, God has always been present from the beginning. As soon as Adam was on the scene, God provided a companion, a woman, having already inserted him into a pristine garden, and surrounded him with animals. But God was Adam’s first