But THEY COULD NOT KEEP HIM IN THE GRAVE! As He had done for over three years, He proved HE ALONE had the right to have the Final Word, the Only Opinion, the absolute Truth that matters. Debate over. NO ONE ELSE walks on water and commands the storms and heals the lame and blind, and raises the dead by Command. JESUS ALONE, Y’shua, has the Final Word. But thank GOD for that! HE ALONE is Relevant, rather than merely relative. Hear ye HIM! Whatever HE says, goes. Period. No one else can raise the dead but Jesus; no one else’s thoughts amount to more than a drip in the ocean of conflicting opinions. Hear ye HIM! He was murdered out of rage and jealousy by the religiously powerful and greedy and dark-hearted of His day. But, how did it come about? How did this penniless man, “if it be lawful to call him a man” as the non-christian historian Josephus exclaimed, invade human history, change the Destiny of those who would abandon to Him and His Truth? Soon He will Crack the Sky and come back for those who are His! Will you be that man, that woman, that child that is looking and longing for His Return in the clouds to claim His own? Let’s consider Him for a few minutes.... Jesus’ life on earth was drawing to a close. For three years He had spent nearly every waking hour with a handful of men and women. Together they had experienced so much—breathtaking miracles, penetrating teaching, hateful opposition. But it was obvious now that Jesus had something weighing on His mind. Leaving behind the crowds and the critics, He withdrew from the villages of Galilee to the seacoast city of Caesarea Philippi. He gathered His friends around him, fixed His eyes on theirs, took a breath, and asked a question: “Who do people say I am?” His friends—probably with a surge of pride that their popular teacher inspired such interest and a wave of attention—repeated the latest rumors. Jesus was a “prophet,” perhaps even one of the old prophets of centuries past come back to life! Or maybe a reincarnation of the recently martyred John the Baptist! Jesus waited for the banter to die down and the last chuckle to fade into silence. He held His disciples in His eyes for a moment longer, then asked them the most important question they had ever heard. “But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?” He knew how they ticked, inside and out. And He knew how we would tick. He knew that people like you and me could see Him without really perceiving who He was, hear Him without really listening to what He was saying, and hang around Him without really getting to know Him. So Jesus challenged every assumption, cut through every “Well, of course…” and asked the key question. Who do you say I am? This man Jesus from the Middle East, a man unlike anyone ever born, has been seemingly turned into anemic fable and emaciated fairytale by Western nonsense, sentiment, love of the world and things of the world, love of entertainment shows and superstition, and fake forms of Christianity that do not honor nor obey Him, nor reflect His Glory or look at all like the Family of Life and Love, His Church, that He birthed from Heaven. Jesus was lied about, mocked, slandered, accused, arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for daring to take a stand AGAINST the ritualistic weak religions of rote words, empty promises, selfish isolated lives, and power-hungry medicine-men clergy. Just another “prophet” or Santa Claus or moral Teacher or Mystic or Fairytale? Who REALLY was and IS Jesus? How you answer that question from the heart makes ALL the difference as you look to the Father, or just look to the earth for lifeless religions of convenience and powerlessness, as mere men may do. “Who do YOU say that I Am,” He asks YOU, today! What would your personal response be? In your own heart, what have you made of Jesus? Let’s take a few minutes together to sort through our pile of assumptions. Let’s examine each assumption in the light of what the people who knew Jesus best had to say about Him. Many of them were present on that day in Caesarea Philippi and the testimonies of these people deserve our respect. Many of these men and women whose convictions are recorded in what we call the New Testament went to their deaths in the face of violent, hateful opposition, without wavering for a single moment in what they so confidently declared. These few pages can’t possibly do justice to the question of Jesus’ identity and significance. But let’s do give honest consideration to some of those men and women’s convictions about Him. As we read, let’s ask ourselves: If what they said is true, what would the implications be for my life?
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:26:33 +0000
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