The Bible's Big-Picture StorySample

STAGE 6: JESUS COMES. God is King.

After 400 years of silence, God speaks again—this time in a new way and in the most exciting stage of the Bible’s big picture.  To mirror the very start of the story in Genesis 1:1, John 1:1 opens with the words “In the beginning…” 

The story is being rewritten…

And it’s all about wonderful Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, the final part of God’s plan to restore our relationship with Him. Jesus, relying on the words of God the Father and God’s Spirit, The Helper, chose to act only out of His humanness, to model to us what it can look like to live in true relationship with God here on Earth. Jesus bridges the gap between heaven and Earth, becoming our priest, prophet, King and continuing to speak to us today. His whole life was lived for us!

Jesus lived relationally, investing in a few people who most other people probably would have ignored—they seemed like ‘insignificant people.’ Jesus challenged many through His teaching, turning their thinking about God upside down. He healed and brought dead people back to life. He made friends with those others deemed ‘unworthy,’ the outcasts and outsiders, rewriting their stories, re-naming and re-establishing them, calling out their true identity, bringing their story into His. 

But not only did He live for us, He died for us, too. The final choice of a loving God was to love. Saying from the cross ‘Forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.’ But Jesus knew what He was choosing to do, fulfilling all the prophecies about Him. He died a death He didn’t deserve, experiencing first-hand all the consequences of our wrong choices, and in His mercy, cancelling those out to bring us freedom and life. 

Yet even that wasn’t the end; not only did He live and die for us, but He lives again for us! His resurrection is proof that death didn’t defeat Him, that He has rewritten the ending and defeated Satan, setting us free to experience life in all its fullness… forever! 

This wonderful, game-changing stage of the Bible’s big picture ends with Jesus going back up to heaven, witnessed by His closest friends here on Earth. Taking His place beside God the Father and continuing to speak to Him on our behalf.  Leaving His friends to await the Helper – His Holy Spirit.

Because of Jesus’ choices, love wins!

An invitation to interact with God and His life-giving Word:

Perhaps read the Bible verses again for today and ponder all that Jesus has done, and simply ask Him what He wants to speak to you about today.

Part of your interaction may look like visualising it with words, images, poetry, song, movement or quiet meditation… Enjoy!