Encounters with Jesus: Forty Reflections on Knowing and Loving the Saviour

“They came for Jesus; they came for miracles, for insight, direction, encouragement, teaching. What they got was God.”

Why do we seek Jesus? Do we come to Him for insight, direction, encouragement, teaching...miracles? Is it because He answers our prayers? Maybe the reason we came to Him the first time is not the reason we come today. 

In Encounters with Jesus, J.R. Hudberg probes these questions by examining Jesus’s interactions with a variety of people from His day: believers, skeptics, scoffers, the passionate, and the immovable. These unique situations allow us to see ourselves with our own needs and concerns and to be confronted with the same choices He gave to those He met then.

 “[Jesus] presents us with—very nearly forces us into—a choice. Will we follow him, giving up our own ideas of identity and security? Or will we choose our own ideas of identity and security? This is both a one-time choice and one we are faced with everyday….We must choose as well. Will we choose to side with the man who performs miracles and raises people from the dead? Or will the threat he poses to our meaning, identity, and security lead us to find a way to get rid of him to protect those things that we think are most important?”

This threat looms as large for the Christian life as it does for those who have never followed Jesus. What choice will you make? Read Encounters with Jesus and decide.