Jesus is God

Mark 8:27-30

Here are four verses or one paragraph that might change the life of someone you know and care about.  It is a question Jesus asked of his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 

The following is their answer; “And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”  I’m so thankful that Mark gave us Jesus’ reply, “But who do you say that I am?”  That is the question of the ages; first asked of the disciples, but it is a question each person who has ever lived on planet earth must answer?

Has that question confronted you, not what others have to say, but how have you answered that question?  C.S. Lewis tells us Jesus has not given any Wiggle room in his book Mere Christianity, (pages 55-56).  “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing 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 the level with the 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 at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to . . .. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”  And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.   That was until Jesus death but from that day on we have been directed to share that news with everyone.  My prayer is that you, like Peter and C.S. Lewis and myself will come to know that Jesus is God.  But I’m fearful that many will agree that He is God and yet not seek a personal relationship with Him, it comes with a price, He takes your place, for He will not share His role as King of Kings and Lord of Lords with any man or angel.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice