QJA Who is Jesus

Who is Jesus

"Are there more leaves in the world or blades of grass?"

Mum: "Hey, tell me about that castle you b

Daughter: "Mom, why's your tummy big?"

Mom: "That's because I'm expecting a baby."

Daughter: "Where's the baby?"

Mom: "Inside my tummy!"

Daughter: (Looking totally shocked) "OMG you ate the baby?"

Four-year-old: "Hey dad, when are you gonna die?"

5. Four-year-old: "Hey dad, when are you gonna die?"

Dad: "I don't know, hopefully not for a long time."

Four-year-old: "Oh...well when you and mom die I want new parents."

Dad: "You what?"

Four-year-old: "I love you guys, but I need parents. I'm not old enough to use the stove."

Swimming lessons, 'When do we learn how to breathe underwater?'."

In the middle of dinner, with no context: "What did it feel like on your last day of being a child?"

While on a flight a little girl turned and said, "If the Care Bears live up here, then where does Jesus live?"

While cookies are baking, and my 3-year-old niece asks, "Are the cookies loading?" (like an app)

"What is the name of the space between the bits that stick out on a comb?"

"Since your eyes are blue, does that mean you see everything in blue?"

"In the olden days was everything black and white?"

13. "In the olden days was everything black and white?"

Simple Questions Can Be the Hardest to Answer

Simple questions can be the most difficult to answer. There was an instance when Jesus asked his disciples, “what were you speaking about on the road?”

Simple question. Unless the topic was which disciple would be the greatest.

A few pages back, Herod was under tremendous pressure. He had to keep the peace. He would use force if necessary. The Jews were in an uproar, stirring crowds because of a teacher who performed miracles and taught in their synagogues, as one who had authority. Herod called his people together and asked who this man was? Who do men say that he is,

As much as that makes me feel good, I assured him I wasn’t.

Have you had a case of mistaken identity?

Have you had a case of mistaken identity?

I told you my Garth Brooks story. I don’t pick faces out of a crowd very well.

A few pages back, Herod was under tremendous pressure. He had to keep the peace. He would use force if necessary. The Jews were in an uproar, stirring crowds because of a teacher who performed miracles and taught in their synagogues as one who had authority. Herod called his people together and asked who this man was? Who do men say that he is,

Um, one of the prophets? Elijah? Herod said no, this is John the Baptist come back from the dead.

In his mind, and in the verses following, if you continued reading, Mark recounts the story of Herod lopping off John’s head to please Herodias’s daughter.

Herod was no doubt fearful of him if he was raised from the dead.

After all this, Jesus walking the road with His disciples asked them, “who do men say that I am?”

As you know there are no shortages of answers to this question. Even today, people have an answer.

As you can imagine, an on the street interview or a library visit, or a query of the keenest minds in history would all give you a definitive answer.

Many theologians have also weighed in.

Karl Rahner described Jesus as “a perfect human person.”

John T Robinson claimed Jesus was “the human face of God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw him as “the man for others.”

Some call him the great liberator, or the crucified God.

Bruce Barton, American businessman turned author said that Jesus was the greatest salesman who ever lived.

There are no lack of answers to the question, Who do men say that I am.”

Even the disciples had an answer. Some say what Herod had stated, John the Baptist come back from the dead of Elijah, or one of the prophets.

The question Jesus asked was Who do people say that I am?

I listened to Ravi Zacharias debate a Muslim on this very point this week. The Muslim knew the Bible very well. He quoted scripture. His real question was about original sin and the fact that Jesus never spoke of it. Ravi knew the Koran just as well, and pointed him to his real question. Who was Jesus?

“All in all there were a total of one hundred and twenty-three specific prophesys [sic] about his life all of which came true. Crucifixion was unknown in these times, yet it was foretold that he would be nailed to a cross of wood. And one of the predictions was that he would be born of a virgin.“Now I know that is probably the hardest for you as a Dr. to accept. The only answer that can be given is – a miracle,” Reagan wrote. “… Either he was who he said he was or he was the greatest faker and charlatan who ever lived. But would a liar and faker suffer the death he did when all he had to do to save himself was admit he’d been lying?”The miracle, Reagan wrote, is “that a young man of 30 years without credentials as a scholar or priest began preaching on street corners” and changed the world. “He owned nothing but the clothes on his back and he didn’t travel beyond a circle less than one hundred miles across. He did this for only 3 years and then was executed as a common criminal. But for two thousand years, he has … had more impact on the world than all the teachers, scientists, emperors, generals and admirals who ever lived, all put together. The apostle John said, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.’

“We have been promised that all we have to do is ask God in Jesus name to help when we have done all we can – when we’ve come to the end of our strength and abilities and we’ll have that help,” Reagan wrote. “We only have to trust and have faith in his infinite goodness and mercy.”Reagan then referenced the love Loyal and his wife, Edith, had for one another. “We’ve been promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater glory awaits us. It awaits you together one day, and all that is required is that you believe and tell God you put yourself in his hands.”He signed it: “Love, Ronnie.” Earlier in the letter, Reagan had referenced an example from his own life that he believed illustrated the power of prayer. He had suffered from a painful ulcer as governor of California and was ordered by the doctor to take Maalox regularly.  “Then one morning I got up, went into the bathroom, reached for the bottle [of Maalox] as always and something happened. I knew I didn’t need it. I had gone to bed with the usual pain the night before but I knew that morning I was healed.”When Reagan opened his mail at work that morning, he began reading letters from constituents. The first letter was from a woman who said she met with a group each day and prayed for him. The second letter was from a man who said he did the same. Later that morning, a young staffer from the legal staff came into Reagan’s office to tell him something and on the way out added: “Gov., I think maybe you’d like to know – some of us on the staff come in early every morning and get together to pray for you.”

Later, when Reagan went to the doctor for his checkup, the doctor became “puzzled,” Reagan wrote. Not only was the ulcer gone, Reagan said, but the doctor said there was no indication Reagan had ever had an ulcer in the first place.“Coincidence? I don’t think so,” Reagan wrote in his letter to Loyal Davis. “… There is a line in the Bible – ‘Where ever two or more are gathered in my name there will I be also.’”

But the question He wanted answered was, “who do you say that I am?

The question the Muslim needed the answer to, the question Jesus wanted answered was, “who do you say that I am?

Only a single word in the question is different, but that one word makes all the difference.

This question, for many is not simple. It is very complex. If they answer in the affirmative, they may receive the applauds of their peers, or, they may be excommunicated from their family faith. Their commitment to their answer may cost them a great deal.

You cannot escape this question into the comforts of objectivity. You cannot sit on the fence and describe what you see. You really have to jump to one side or the other. The Son of God, or a lunatic.

C.S. Lewis contended the answers are limited here, He stated:

My aim is to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing people say about Him, such as “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” This is the sort of thing that we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon; or, you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.

Make a Decision

Are you familiar with the expression FOMO? No its not a curse word!

It is an acronym for FEAR OF MISSING OUT.

We have a dilemma, in our society. The dilemma is our inability to make a decision. Now you laugh and say, not making a decision is a decision...

Right. Psychology Today, Dr Nick Hobson discusses the dilemma. He states social media causes us to freeze, and make no decision because anxiety says “there might be a better activity,” “I may not receive the approval of others” or, “I can find something better.”

Jesus asks, “who do you say that I am?” Some may rebut, can I make this an essay question so I can qualify my answer?

We may answer, with the affirmative, but...

If asking a person to make a decision about Jesus as God or not God, many will substitute words that emphasize evolutionary growth in their understanding of God and their relationship with Jesus. A person might give the answer, “I’m on a pilgrimage”, or a “spiritual journey.”

Commitment to the church wains because of indecision and FOMO. If I’m there, I might miss out on...

I can’t go I’ll be labeled and FOMO with my friends who think differently

The body of Christ suffers from indecision.

I wonder, is there a time, date, place where you made a decision for Christ? When you said to yourself, or to Him, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Are you undecided, because you don’t have enough information, or you are paralyzed by the anxiety, fear, and stress of what others may think?

I want you to look at the rise in the numbers of couples living together before marriage. Decision time, FOMO, lets try it out first.

When there is no righteous commitment to a partner, there is no trusting growing flourishing love. You cannot give it all to them for the fear of being rejected. When you don’t go all in you are rejected because the other doesn’t feel the full commitment of your love. It’s a hamster wheel.

You will never really get the church, its mission, the real care for the individual, until you love Jesus with your whole heart soul mind and strength.

Jesus asked them, who do you say that I am. Peter answered. You are the Christ, the son of the living God.

If Peter is right, way to go! If he is wrong, he is going to lose his head, really, physically, with a sword! You don’t go around telling people you walk with the Son of God and be taken seriously.

Let’s Make it Personal

I want to ask the question a different way.

When was the last time you told someone what Jesus meant to you?

That you lean on Him, you listen to His words, you affirm He is Lord, you entrust your life to Him, that you are free to love because of Him, He is life to you, peace to you, He is Emmanuel.

A newly unveiled handwritten letter from 1982 shows President Ronald Reagan quoting Scripture, pointing to Old Testament prophecy and using apologetics while pleading with his dying, atheist father-in-law to accept Christ. “We have been promised that all we have to do is ask God in Jesus name to help when we have done all we can – when we’ve come to the end of our strength and abilities and we’ll have that help,” Reagan wrote Aug. 7, 1982, as his father-in-law, Loyal Davis, was near death. “We only have to trust and have faith in his infinite goodness and mercy.”The letter was uncovered by Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty, who is writing a biography about Reagan’s wife, the former Nancy Davis. The letter was not part of the presidential records in the Ronald Reagan Library but was found “in a cardboard box of Nancy Reagan’s personal effects,” Tumulty wrote. Loyal Davis, a neurosurgeon, previously had said he didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, or heaven and hell.  The letter from Reagan was written two years into his first term. “I know of your feeling – your doubt but could I just impose on you a little longer? Some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ the ancient Jewish prophets predicted the coming of a Messiah,” Reagan wrote. “They said he would be born in a lowly place, would proclaim himself the Son of God and would be put to death for saying that. 

“All in all there were a total of one hundred and twenty-three specific prophesies about his life all of which came true. Crucifixion was unknown in these times, yet it was foretold that he would be nailed to a cross of wood. And one of the predictions was that he would be born of a virgin.“Now I know that is probably the hardest for you as a Dr. to accept. The only answer that can be given is – a miracle,” Reagan wrote. “… Either he was who he said he was or he was the greatest faker and charlatan who ever lived. But would a liar and faker suffer the death he did when all he had to do to save himself was admit he’d been lying?”The miracle, Reagan wrote, is “that a young man of 30 years without credentials as a scholar or priest began preaching on street corners” and changed the world. “He owned nothing but the clothes on his back and he didn’t travel beyond a circle less than one hundred miles across. He did this for only 3 years and then was executed as a common criminal. But for two thousand years, he has … had more impact on the world than all the teachers, scientists, emperors, generals and admirals who ever lived, all put together. The apostle John said, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.’

“We have been promised that all we have to do is ask God in Jesus name to help when we have done all we can – when we’ve come to the end of our strength and abilities and we’ll have that help,” Reagan wrote. “We only have to trust and have faith in his infinite goodness and mercy.”Reagan then referenced the love Loyal and his wife, Edith, had for one another. “We’ve been promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater glory awaits us. It awaits you together one day, and all that is required is that you believe and tell God you put yourself in his hands.”He signed it: “Love, Ronnie.” 

Later, when Reagan went to the doctor for his checkup, the doctor became “puzzled,” Reagan wrote. Not only was the ulcer gone, Reagan said, but the doctor said there was no indication Reagan had ever had an ulcer in the first place.“Coincidence? I don’t think so,” Reagan wrote in his letter to Loyal Davis. “… There is a line in the Bible – ‘Where ever two or more are gathered in my name there will I be also.’”

Back to the scripture:

Mark

Mark 8:34–38 NKJV

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

He really makes it simple. You are for Him, or you aren’t.

Will you cast your vote for Jesus?

Song?