Robert E Rasmussen.com

I have told our infertility story as far as our dilemma of financial and emotional brokenness. After graduating from seminary, my wife and I returned to our home state to get a fresh start on waiting on God for both a ministry assignment and clarity on whether or not to adopt. Out of our desperation, Jesus manifested Himself in our lives in ways we could not have anticipated.

My father, who was a pastor in a city four hours away from where we were living, did something that at first embarrassed us but later encouraged us. He wrote to all the gynecologists in his city explaining that he had a son who, with his wife, greatly longed to have a child but were not able to do so. If any such doctor should hear of a young mother who did not want to get an abortion, but could not keep the baby, please (wrote my father) consider my son and his wife as adoptive parents. I was amazed when my dad told us what he had done, but doubly amazed when he heard from one doctor in his town who had the exact situation described! In a few months time we drove to that city and held in our arms a beautiful baby girl.

And there was a deeper sense in which the risen Christ displayed Himself in us. You see, resurrection is not always evident in circumstances. There was a form of resurrection that happened in our hearts. Occasionally, as we waited for the day of birth of the daughter we were to adopt, someone would ask in insensitive question such as, “After you adopt, if you have ‘one of your own,’ will you give the adopted baby back?” We could hardly believe our ears at this kind of naiveté. But here is my point. Through the adoption process, we came to see adoption as a wondrous privilege and joy on par with having a child biologically (which we later did). Through adopting, we got a glimpse into the Father’s heart by realizing that love can fully embrace a child placed in our family. Our daughter became our own, just as we become the possession of God the Father. This is a miracle of the living Christ within us. “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:6)!

Do you have an adoption story?

In college I faced a Gethsemane crisis of my will to be a prosperous architect with God’s will that I fully embrace the Lordship of Christ over my life and career. Through months of struggle, I yielded to God and sacrificed my ambitions – my personal Golgotha (or one of them at least). As I recounted previously, I changed my career path and attended seminary, along with my new wife. My experience during those years was spiritually dry as the Bible became, for me (not by my professor’s intentions) a text book more than a life source. I had the opportunity to abide deeply in Christ, but in all honestly, I failed to dwell contentedly with the Lord during those years.

So how has the risen Christ been manifested in my life as an outflow of my surrender and sacrifice? In a phrase, I have never been the same. I have become someone very unlike the successful professional I had planned to be. My values have little to do with visible success or material possessions. I have had the privilege of serving as a pastor to hundreds of dear people. I have conveyed to them the love of their Savior, and have received love from dozens of families in return.

Not only that, I have, along with my wife and two daughters, been privileged to live and minister overseas in Africa for a decade. That has been a defining experience for each one of us. We have been loved and esteemed by Africans far beyond what we earned. Only eternity will reveal the lives we have been privileged to touch.

But even more deeply, we have been transformed by the living power of Christ in us. We are living for a higher purpose, and experience regularly the fulfillment of staying surrendered to the will of God, staying sacrificial at the foot of the cross, and abiding intimately in Jesus. I can honestly say that because of this major gospel cycle lasting over 40 years, God has graciously put Jesus on display in our family. We have had many difficulties and made many mistakes. We have been fearful and sometimes doubting. We have often been confused and weak. But all these experiences have been indispensable to our following Jesus at each of the points along the way.

How has Jesus manifested Himself in you through a difficult experience?

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Since the resurrection aspect of the Jesus way primarily draws attention to Him, we can expect that Satan will seek to draw attention away from Jesus. The method the deceiver typically uses is to tempt the disciple to draw attention to him or herself. The enemy of manifesting Christ is our own self-importance.

Jesus gave a scathing rebuke to his generation because they carefully discerned weather signs but failed to understand signs of the kingdom of God. “Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3b).

Today, people carefully study the financial outlook, the sports prognosis, home improvement possibilities, sales coupons, and leisure options. We are experts in reading the signs of the times for our own self-interest. But we are content to be novices in that which concerns God. This is perfectly understandable for those who make no claim to follow Jesus, but those who say they have love for Him and desire to serve Him are only hypocrites, for in reality they do not care to understand God’s ways.

What single sign did Jesus provide His generation? And how is that still the sign given to our generation?

“A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matt. 16:4).

Jonah prefigures the ministry of the greatest prophet – Jesus. Jonah was called by God to preach repentance to an obstinate city, Nineveh. He disobeyed, but repented and surrendered during his life crisis in the depths of the sea. He rose from the depths, fulfilled his assignment of proclamation, and watched as God brought revival to the city.

Jonah’s three days in the belly of a great fish typify Jesus’ burial and resurrection. And the risen Christ living His new life through His followers today is still the sign given by God to a skeptical world. It is theirs to accept or reject. It is ours to live and display in great faith.

What cross-like experience have you been through that God likely used in the lives of others who watched you going through it?

If we liken our lives to an unfolding drama, living the gospel amounts to being cast in the role of Jesus in every scene we are asked to play. His teachings become our lines, His attitudes become our response. His wrestling through to obedience, His willingness to sacrifice, and His taking up His cross are the story lines we strive to portray, for we are His disciples. Our sole ambition is to be like Him to the greatest degree possible.

When I speak of life in this way, I do not mean that we are merely play acting. While we are not substituting for Christ who uniquely died to live the gospel, yet we are following His pattern in ways the Bible clearly commands. We are not pulling mythical ideas out of the air. Instead, we are displaying a new way of living because there is in all the universe one living Savior who has become our consuming passion. And this is true only because we first became His passion.

The highest reward for following Jesus is living His resurrection life, which is eternal and dynamic, and the fulfillment of our purpose for existence. Our greatest honor is to have fellowship with the risen Son of God in which our spirits dwell together with Him.

Our goal should be to find the Jesus role in every situation, large or small, and fulfill it in dependence on His Spirit. Imagine what your life would be like as you do that. Think of what your families and church would be like. Your experience would not be easier. In fact, it would be impossible for you to depict the character of Jesus if everything went smoothly all of the time. No, to exemplify your Master requires that you encounter scenes in Gethsemane and Golgotha. The role calls for false accusation and betrayal. Without a crisis of wills you would never cry, “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” Without opponents you would never pray, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Only with these extreme challenges can you manifest the Christ who forgave His enemies, paid the penalty of all our sin, and rose from death!

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Because of the excellence of Christ in heaven, we can excel while still on earth.

Scripture brags about the innumerable blessings which come to the disciple as a result of the resurrection of Christ. In Ephesians chapter one, the Apostle Paul extols the fact that “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” is ours through Christ (Eph. 1:3). He then fills out the revelation by describing the implications for believers based on the fact that the Christ, who died and rose again, now sits in the heavenly places “far above all principality and power and might and dominion” (Eph. 1:21).

The gospel work of Christ – surrender, death, burial, resurrection – has established Him forever in the position of highest authority in the heavens. The present importance of this fact for all believers surpasses adequate description. One could plumb the depths of this truth for years and never fully mine its riches. No wonder Paul prays for the faith community in Ephesus – in a way that we should pray for ourselves – that God would grant a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ (Eph 1:17). So much is contained in the Son of God that only divine insight can begin to unveil it. Our prayerful longing should continue as did Paul’s: That the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened, that we may know the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (Eph. 1:18).

And there is more. Because of the excellence of Christ in heaven, we can excel while still on earth. We must pray to know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power (Eph. 1:19), which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. We can know the all-excelling power of Christ in resurrection .

These truths are not threatened by the existence of spiritual forces of evil. There are principalities and powers, might and dominion seeking to wreak evil in heaven and earth, but Christ has conquered them all and rules from far above them. This is true not only now, but also in any age that is to come (Eph. 1:21).

And should anyone think that the church is an optional choice in following Christ, he or she should think again, for one of the benefits flowing from Christ’s gospel accomplishment is His headship over the church, which is His body. One does not want to consider the very body of Christ as superfluous to genuine faith, especially since, by revelation, we know that the church is the fullness of Christ even as the body is the expression of His headship (Eph. 1:22-23).

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