This is one of the most widely recognized images throughout all the world. Who has never seen this portrait in one form or another???

OK, let’s conduct a poll.  Who is this? Here are your choices:
1. Jesus
2. Jesus Christ
3. Son of God
4. Messiah
5. Savior
6. That guy in the Mel Gibson movie

OK, which one did you pick? It doesn’t really matter which one you picked.  We have been told this is the Messiah in scripture, Jesus, for too many centuries to count (over 500 years).

All joking aside, REALLY, who is this guy?
Some will say he is Cesare Borgia. His father was Pope Alexander VI, and Cesare was appointed to prominent positions within the Roman church at an early age.
Cesare befriended Leonardo da Vinci during his life and it is rumoured that Leonardo used Borgia’s likeness as a base for his depiction of a caucasian Jesus.  Apparently it was common place for artists to do such things to please popes and monarchs.
It seems that the image of Jesus that many worship today is based on Cesare Borgia’s likeness.

I can’t say if any of this is true or not, but this idea is quite popular.
While I wasn’t there, in the flesh, 2000 plus years ago, I believe I can say this with some level of confidence:
It is highly likely that the true Messiah was a dark skinned Middle Eastern man.
Call me crazy…

I am not an eye witness to such things, but I think we can say the portrait of ‘Jesus’ that we’ve been indoctrinated with is likely fraudulent…
Does it matter?
White Jesus.
Black Jesus.
Red Jesus.
Brown Jesus.
Yellow Jesus.
Purple Jesus.

As for us putting our faith in the one true Messiah, and trusting Him for forgiveness, it doesn’t matter what color He is.
But here is why this seemingly false image might matter (this thought came from my wife Tracy):

Revelation 13:15
 The second beast was permitted to give life to the image of the first beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause all who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 

Why is this important?
What does it mean to bring an image to life?
We’ve been ‘fed’ this image of Jesus for our entire lives.
We see it in children’s bibles, adult bibles, statues, paintings, sculptures, in movies, on billboards, on crucifixes, some of which are very large and erected in our ‘church buildings’.
We are bombarded with this likeness, this image, of ‘Jesus’ over and over and over again, all throughout our lives.

If you are familiar with my blog posts, you know that I do not believe the “Mainstream Church Jesus” is the same as the Yeshua Messiah described in scripture.
Don’t take my word for it…
If you compare the two, you will see they are vastly different.
But that is not the point of this post…

But why indoctrinate the whole of humanity with a singular image concept of Jesus?
Disclaimer – this is speculation…

What if it is tied to Revelation 13:15?
What if the powers that be are going to produce a man who looks like this image, proclaiming him to be the second coming of Messiah?
What if this is a great deception (that we are promised in scripture)?
How horrible would it be for millions upon millions to worship a man of this image, not realizing it is not Him (the true Messiah)?

Just something to ponder…
Let me know what you think.