How To Be Happy and Carefree

The Beatitudes are a section of Scripture where even those who don't like Jesus still have respect for.

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. -Matthew 5

What does this all mean? It's so familiar that I have a hard time thinking about it. It seems in my mind to fall into the same category as " roses are red, violets are blue..." 

I remember in school the toughest content to sturdy was content that I was already familiar with. I would gloss over it as I read through it assuming I knew what it was saying without ever taking the time to read through it. This to me is the category that the beatitudes can fall into. 

Does this happen to you? 

First, I think it would be helpful to look at what the word beatitude means. The closest definition I can find is happy or carefree. The beatitudes describe what a truly happy, carefree person looks like and it is a very different list than you or I would have come up with. 

What can we learn from this so far?

 At the very least this tells me that the Christianity that Jesus spoke of is not common. This is not a list of things that you commonly see people displaying. Also, it is very different from any other popular ideaology. 

Here are some examples of commonly held beliefs across different worldviews. 

• You have to work hard in order to achieve rewards (including spiritual rewards) and attain satisfaction 
• The rich are favored by God/universe
• A righteous/good/strong person always pulls themselves up by their bootstraps 
• Crying/being sad is for the weak 
• You have to be self reliant and assertive to get ahead in life
• If you are persecuted, God/universe must be angry with you

Perhaps you might have not heard the above beliefs expressed explicitly, but they are the messages that are lived out in our culture regardless of people's religious background and they are contrary to what Jesus Himself taught. 

If you are living your life under the false belief system you will know that they only breed anxiety and stress. These false beliefs tell you to find your identity and value in your performance. You are only as good as you can perform. 


What do the beatitudes say? 

• God gives His kingdom to those that see their need for Him. 
• God comforts those who mourn with and for their own shortcomings and the pain and suffering of others. 
• Being humble and God-reliant (instead of self-reliant) is what gains an inheritance. 
• Those who desire a deeper satisfaction than the world can offer will be satisfied in what God offers. 
• Being aware of the need of Him and being satisfied by Him is to have received mercy. When you have experienced mercy like this you are free and able to give that mercy to others. 
• Being merciful towards others produces a pure heart that wants good for others. This is the kind of heart that can look into Gods eye's with joy. 
• Being merciful and wanting good for others will make you into the type of person that people seek counsel from when they are seeking to settle their own disputes. You will be reflecting God to others. 
• A person who lives out the above attributes is a person who will have a lot of influence on his community. Some will not like this and will seek to take away that influence how ever they can. 
• You are given blessings and rewards in heaven when others revile you because you believe in Jesus. 

The last beatitude is the one that displays the uniqueness Jesus. 

The core of the beatitudes is not moral performance, but Jesus himself. He is the one that perfectly displays the beatitudes in his own life.  

10 Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. 11 But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?*” 12 When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” 13 Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’* For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”-Matthew 9 

Empty? Empty!

Luke 24:6–7 (RSV) — 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,7 that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise.”

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So you expect me to believe that a man rose from the dead? That's just ridiculous! I only believe in things that can be proven. Give me facts!

Well, let's talk about it.

The empty tomb of Jesus is actually much closer to fact than most people would lead to you believe. There are people whose entire job revolves around studying the New Testament documents that we have. Not all of these people are believers. Some are Jews, some are agnostics, some are atheists, some are Christians but all are very well educated.

Just because NT scholars believe something to be true, doesn't mean that it is. However, if scholars from both ends of the spectrum (believers and unbelievers in Jesus) agree on something, that usually means that there is compelling evidence for such an agreement.

Recently a scholar by the name of Gary Habermas did a survey of over 2,200 publications on the resurrection in English, French, and German since 1975. He found that approximately 75% of scholars accepted the historicity of the discovery of Jesus' empty tomb.

Also, according to Jacob Kremer, another NT scholar who has specialized in the study of the resurrection, "By far most scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb."

The evidence is so compelling that even a number of Jewish scholars, such as Pinchas Lapide and Geza Vermes, have declared themselves convinced on the basis of the evidence that Jesus' tomb was found empty.

Why is it important that his tomb was found empty? Because if we agree that the tomb was empty, then we are left with the task of explaining and it...

Let's look quickly at the different attempts to explain the empty tomb and you can decide which is best.

The Conspiracy Hypothesis
The disciples stole the body and lied about His resurrection appearances, thus faking the resurrection.

While this was a popular theory in the eighteenth century by European deists, today however, it has been completely given up by modern scholarship.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright sums it up like this, "if you're a first-century Jew, and your favorite Messiah got himself crucified, then you've basically got two choices: Either you go home or else you get yourself a new Messiah. But the idea of stealing Jesus' corpse and saying that God had raised him from the dead is hardly one that would have entered the minds of the disciples."

The only place you really read about this theory anymore is in the popular, sensationalist press or Internet fantasies.

The Apparent Death Hypothesis

Jesus was not completely dead when He was taken dow from the cross. He revived in the tomb and escaped to convince His disciples He had risen from the dead.

Today this hypothesis has also been almost completely given up.

How would the appearance of a half-dead man desperately in need of medical attention have elicited in the disciples the conclusion that He was the risen Lord and conqueror of death? How would you explain the origin of the disciples belief in Jesus' resurrection, since seeing Him again would lead them to conclude merely that He hadn't died? They would not have concluded (upon seeing Him in this state) that He had gloriously risen from the dead.

The Resurrection Hypothesis

God raised Jesus from the grave.

While this at face value may seem to be the least probable explanation, if God exists, this hypothesis seems quite probable especially given the life that Jesus lived and the claims that He made.

This theory requires only one new supposition: that God exists. Surely its rival hypotheses require many new suppositions. For example, the conspiracy hypothesis requires us to suppose that the moral character of the disciples was defective, which is certainly not implied by already existing knowledge; the apparent death hypothesis requires the supposition that the centurion's lance thrust into Jesus' side was just a superficial poke or is an unhistorical detail in the narrative, which again goes beyond existing knowledge; moreover, for the person who already believes in god, the resurrection hypothesis doesn't even introduce a new supposition.

The Conclusion

If you are able to give up a prejudice against miracles, it's hard to deny that the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of the facts. What do you think?

John 20:24–29 (NLT) — 24 One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. 25 They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” 26 Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” 28 “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed. 29 Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”

Revelation 1:17–18 (NLT) — 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.

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William Craig, (2010). On Guard. Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.
Jacob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien-Geschichten um Geschichte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), 49-50.
Gary Habermas, "Experience of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection," Dialog 45 (2006): 292.
N.T. Wright, Sewanee Theological Review, 41.2, 1998.

Risen: Fact or Fiction?

Acts 13:28–31 (ESV) — 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

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The resurrection is a fairy tale. The early church probably just copied the idea from other cultures at the time whose "deities" were also raised from the dead.

Let's consider it...

Where did the idea of Jesus' resurrection come from? What did the Jews themselves believe in regards to resurrection and what did the ancient world believe in regards to resurrection? The answers aren't what you'd expect.

First let's look at the cultural influences at the time. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has done an impressive amount of research regarding these questions. He notes that the most influential thinker of the time was Homer and as far as Homer was concerned resurrection was just something that didn't happen. Wright provides a helpful summary, "Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false. Many believed that the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed in resurrection."

The writings of the Greek philosophers like Plato and Cicero portrayed the world in a dualistic view where the body was tainted and the spirit was pure. Those who followed Plato or Cicero did not want a body again; those who followed Homer knew they would not get one.

Wright concludes, "Nobody in the pagan world of Jesus' day and thereafter actually claimed that somebody had been truly dead and had then come to be truly, and bodily, alive once more."

What about the Jews themselves? What did they believe in regards to resurrection?

The teachings of Judaism were that at the end of the world, when time had come to an end, there would be a general resurrection to life for the righteous. However, the Jews had no conception of a resurrection that would take place in the middle of history for only one person. We often look back on history with our own knowledge reading into the situations of the past with our own biases. Jewish belief always concerned a general resurrection of the people at the end of time, not the resurrection of an isolated individual or in the middle of history.

Also professor Edwin Yamauchi has done research on the resurrection and concluded that there is no possibility that the idea of a resurrection was borrowed because there is no definitive evidence for the teaching of a deity resurrection in any of the mystery religions prior to the second century...which would have been way after the Christians were believing in it. It would seem that the other religions were actually influenced by Christianity!

The Jewish idea of Messiah was that a man would rise up in popularity and military/political power and overthrow the foreign powers that were oppressing the Jewish people. If you were following a man that you believed to be Messiah, and instead of rising up and conquering the foreign powers he is arrested by them, beaten, mocked, spit on, stripped naked and crucified, you would conclude that he was not the Messiah.

It would literally require a miracle for the disciples to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. The idea of an isolated resurrection in the middle of history was completely foreign to them, the man that they had been following as Messiah was just crucified (which in Judaism would literally mean that you were cursed by God - thus not Messiah), and they were hiding for their lives locked up in a room together so that they themselves weren't crucified for following Jesus.

Only the resurrection of Jesus would have so changed them and convinced them that Jesus was in fact Messiah. Only an appearance from Jesus who had conquered death could take these cowards and change them to so boldly and fearlessly proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and had risen from the grave. Only an appearance of the risen Messiah would have prompted these men to be willing to die for the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Men are willing to die for what they believe in, but no one dies for what they know to be a lie. These men were willing to die proclaiming Jesus has risen!

Matthew 28:6 (NLT) — 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.

These cowards were so fundamentally different that they went on to accuse, to their faces, the very people who were responsible for the death of Jesus........these same guys were, before the resurrection appearances of Jesus, hiding in a locked room like little girls terrified of them.

Acts 3:15 (NLT) — 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!

Acts 5:30 (NLT) — 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on a cross.

Once cowards, these men had become ferocious and dedicated their lives to the spreading of the gospel message....the message of life, forgiveness, and redemption through Jesus of Nazareth.

Acts 10:39–43 (NLT) — 39 “And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, 41 not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. 43 He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”

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*N.T. Wright, "The Resurrection of the Son of God" (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003)
*William Lane Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?" in Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, ed, Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996)
*Edwin Yamauchi, "Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?" Christianity Today, March 15, 1974 and March 29, 1974

Old School

Exodus 33:20 (NASB95) — 20 But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”

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Was Jesus really God? Perhaps there's been a mix up. Maybe it's just gotten twisted and the church proclaimed Him as God because they mythologized Him. How could God be a man and still God?!

Great questions, let's investigate......old testament style. The "You" coming up is God.

Exodus 33:18–20 (NASB95) — 18 Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” 19 And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” 20 But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”

Here Moses is told that no one can see God and live. Pretty straight forward.

Now...let's look at some other accounts.

There was a man named Jacob. Jacob was terrible. He had cheated his brother out of his money and run away like a worthless coward. He spent years and years away from home, then some twenty or so years later he comes back....back to meet his brother who by the way was not the type of guy you want to mess with. His name was Esau, and he was awesome. He was a man's man, no girly stuff.....Jacob was the girly one.

The night before they are going to meet up, this story below takes place

Genesis 32:24–30 (NLT) — 24 This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. 25 When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 “What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.” 28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” 29 “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”

Jacob saw God face to face, but he lived?! What's going on? I thought no man could see God and live!

Let's look at another. For those of you with some Bible knowledge, this couple listed below became the parent of Samson.

Judges 13:2–3 (NLT) — 2 In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son.

Judges 13:6 (NLT) — 6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name.

Judges 13:8 (NLT) — 8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.”

Judges 13:9–10 (NLT) — 9 God answered Manoah’s prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her. 10 So she quickly ran and told her husband, “The man who appeared to me the other day is here again!”

Judges 13:17–18 (NLT) — 17 Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you.” 18 “Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”

Judges 13:19–22 (NLT) — 19 Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. 20 As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground. 21 The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, 22 and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”

Judges 13:23 (NLT) — 23 But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”

They saw God?! ..... and lived?! 

Let's do another...my favorite one...

You've heard of Moses? He was succeeded by a warrior who lead the Israelites. This guy was legit, people feared and respected him, he was charismatic, and he had the LORD's blessing. This story starts with an interaction between Joshua and the LORD...

Joshua 1:1 (NLT) — 1 After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant. He said,

Joshua 1:5–6 (NLT) — 5 No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you. 6 “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them.

You've heard the song...Joshua fit the battle of Jericho...that's what's about to happen. Joshua has his army settled down waiting for an attack. Joshua wants to go up to the hills and survey the battlefield before and develop a strategy.

Joshua 5:13 (ESV) — 13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?”

Nobody stands around on a battlefield with a sword drawn unless he means business. What do you think the man said?

Joshua 5:14–15 (ESV) — 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” 15 And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Awesome...

Here you have Joshua worshiping the commander of the Lord's army. But what about the 1st commandement?!

Exodus 20:3 (NLT) — 3 “You must not have any other god but me.

How is it that no man can see God and live, and yet there are times when people have seen God and lived? Then you have Joshua bowing down and worshipping the commander of the Lord's army, who was that?

If God is able to take the form of a man in the Old Testament, he would also be able to take the form of a man in the New Testament...and that's just what he does. Who is it that is given the authority to command the Lord's army, who also is holy and worshipped by men but can be seen by men without death resulting?

John 1:1 (NLT) — 1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14 (NLT) — 14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John 10:27–30 (NLT) — 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, 29 for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

My Bro, My God?

1 Corinthians 15:7 (NLT) —7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.

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A lot of people don't know that Jesus had a half brother. He actually had two half brothers that have contributed to the New Testament, James and Jude. We often hear of Jesus as being referred to as the Son of God, but we don't usually think about his humanity. He had a mom, half brothers and sisters.

During his life his family did not believe in him as the Messiah or Son of God, he was just Jesus the carpenter, and a weirdo at that.

John 7:1–5 (NLT)

¹ After this, Jesus traveled around Galilee. He wanted to stay out of Judea, where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. ² But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters, ³ and Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! ⁴ You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” ⁵ For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.

Or again,

Mark 3:20–21 (NLT)

²⁰ One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. ²¹ When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.

Now what's interesting is later we have historical evidence to support that James has a change of heart and begins to proclaim Jesus as God! James became a pillar of the early Christian church in Jerusalem, penned the book we know as "James," and accrued such hatred from the Jewish leaders for his teachings that he was stoned to death before the sanhedrin.

The question arrises, what would it take for you to worship your own brother as God? Especially if while he was alive you thought he was a nut-case.

On top of that the Jewish conception of a Messiah was one who would conquer over the foes that were oppressing Israel, even if James thought his brother was the Messiah, his being put to death, naked, shamefully, on a cross like a criminal would have squashed that belief!

James became so convicted of his belief that Jesus was God that he was willing to be stoned to death for that belief. We see people today dying for what they believe in. What we never see is people dying for something that they know to be a lie.

What would it take for you to worship your own brother as God? The answer in James' case is that he saw his brother, risen from the dead, the God-man who had conquered sin and death. That's what it takes to change one's belief so drastically and so irrevocably. 

Jesus is alive, he has risen, his own brothers worship Him as God. Think about that.

John 6:29 (NLT)

²⁹ Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

Was this guy Legit?

Matthew 5:17 (NLT)

17 “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.

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We have better historical evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth than we do for Alexander the Great. The question isn't, "Is Jesus real?" the question is "Was this guy legit?"

What was Jesus about? Was he really just a good teacher? Perhaps...the only problem with saying that he was a good teacher is what he actually taught. He didn't just say, "Now you make sure and behave nicely to other people, like you would want them to treat you," but rather he taught things like, "I am the Son of God, I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying." These claims are outrageous. So you have to come to the conclusion, this guy is either who he says he is, or he's a lying lunatic. Because of his teachings you can't say he's a good teacher, that wouldn't make sense. You are forced to pick a side.

So if we want to look into, "what if he is who he says he is," the question arrises, "What did he come here for?"

The culture of a first century Jew was obviously very different than our culture. Every culture has their distinctions that set them apart, for the Jews it was the law. There are over 600 laws given in the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament). These laws govern all aspects of life. How to worship, how to do business, how to marry, how to divorce, how to...you name it. The guys in charge of government were also the same guys in charge of church affairs, the fancy word for it is "theocracy." This is the culture that Jesus was born into.

Jesus is extremely controversial because Jews believe there is only one God and this God gave them a law to keep, now here comes a carpenter from some hick town that is teaching people that he is the Son of God and he seems to be doing away with the law and teaching others to do the same.

To this end he says, "“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose."

Think of this, there are two ways to do away with an acorn. You can set it on a stone and smash it to pieces with a hammer. Or, you can plant it in the ground and let it fulfill itself and become a tree. By becoming a tree, it would give meaning and purpose to the acorn. This is similar to Jesus relationship to the law. By fulfilling the law of Moses he gives it purpose and meaning.

Notice he did NOT say, "I did not come to abolish the law, but I have come to give you a new set of rules to follow." 

It's not about being a good person, it's not about following rules, it's about Jesus. 

“For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” (Romans 3:20, NLT)

“I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.” (Galatians 2:21, NLT)

“But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.” (Romans 3:21–22, NLT)

So what do you think, is he legit? If so, what are you going to do next? Jesus' offer still stands,

“I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” (John 5:24, NLT)