“The Problem With Portraying Jesus”

(Galatians 2:20)

Our friend Lance was faced with the dramatic challenge of a lifetime – his church was putting on an outdoor drama, and he was asked to portray Jesus. Well, for four nights, he was supposed to be Jesus. Now Lance had been in enough productions to know you have to really get into the person that you’re playing – and even stay in that character all day long. He tried to do that with Jesus. He couldn’t.

Which led to an exciting discovery. Here’s what he told me - he said, “Ron, I discovered I could not get into the person of Jesus. He would have to get into me. I can’t be Jesus”, he said, “No human being can. Only JESUS can be Jesus – and I would have to let Him be Jesus through me.” Lance tried it that way and the people who know him said, “That wasn’t you up there, Lance.” They were right.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about “The Problem With Portraying Jesus.”

All of us who love Jesus have struggled to portray Him. And like my friend Lance, we’ve all failed. There’s a reason. This isn’t about you displaying the characteristics of Jesus – it’s about you getting out of the way and letting Jesus display His characteristics through you.

You’re the branch, not the vine. No branch can produce fruit by itself – it just has to stay so bonded to the vine that the life of the vine comes through the branch. Jesus said He’s the vine. So what are you doing trying to make fruit happen like some frustrated little branch?

Paul discovered the secret that you may need some 2,000 years ago and he talks about it in our word for today from the Word of God, Galatians 2:20. He says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Key words – “Not I . . . but Christ.”

The heroic missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, discovered what he called “the exchanged life” well into his ministry, and these words from “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret” may help liberate you from a lifetime of trying to perform spiritually. Listen to Hudson Taylor’s insightful words:

“I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation – but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me . . . I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties . . . and constant interruptions. . . caused me to forget Him. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness . . . but the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp.”

And then he tells about his breakthrough: “I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with Me – never to leave me, never to fail me? . . . Abiding, not striving nor struggling . . . trusting Him for present power . . . resting in the love of an Almighty Savior, in the joy of a complete salvation.. . . thinking of all that Jesus is and all He is for us . . . not a striving to have faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need.”

Or as Paul said, “Not I, but Christ.” Or as my friend Lance said, “Only Jesus can be Jesus – and I would have to let Jesus be Jesus through me.” Maybe it’s time for you to give up trying to portray Jesus . . . to admit you can’t . . . to bring down the curtain on your frustrating performance. And to let Jesus play Himself – through you.

Excerpts are from Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Moody Press, 1932, pp. 157-161.

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