Wednesday, September
12, 2018
A Note of Explanation: Most churches will have a reading of God’s Word as part of the worship services. Depending on how many people are there, if you made a list of how people understood the Scripture, you would find many different interpretations, and just as many (if not more) questions than answers. I did a simple Google search on John 3:16, and I found on one site over a thousand sermons (even three of mine). there is so much that can be said about every Bible text that you must do more than consider the Scriptures casually; they demand further investigation!onsidering that reality I have opted for the last three days of this week to focus on this Sunday’s lectionary text as a means of getting ready for Sunday – which, by the way, is a very important part of devotional life, preparing the heart to worship. Here is part one of the text:
Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Mark 8:27-29(NLT)
The questions Jesus asked were very interesting, sometimes
disconcerting, and always to-the-point.
This question, copied-down by the Gospel writer, Mark, is the mother of
all opinion polls. It asks the most
important question, and demands an answer.
What is at back of this question forms another vitally-important question,
which demands just as vital and eternal answer:
who are YOU?
Jesus and the Disciples were having an overwhelming response to
the Lord’s ministry of teaching, healing, and proclaiming the Kingdom of
God. Jesus had sent out the disciples to
spread the word, and they came back incredibly hyped over all that was
happening.
Then He dropped a rather innocuous little question on them … tell
me, what do the people think; WHO do they think I am? Nielsen ratings, opinion polls, and Survey
Monkey questionnaires couldn’t have stirred a more active response. And much of it wasn’t far off. Prophet – check! Elijah – check! John the Baptist back from the dead? All these answers focused-on God’s promises to
send a deliverer, a supernatural Messiah Who arrives on Heaven’s mission to
save us all.
Those answers prompted the final question, a real bomb: How about YOU; who do YOU think I am?
There are many opinion polls which gather volumes of answers of
the multitudes, and are fed into computers that average, leverage, classify,
modify, and codify all the supposed empirical data into tools a politician,
business, or group of whatever kind can use to push their product or agenda. But in that entire mix there are only two
opinions that really matter to an individual – that individual’s answer, and
what God thinks of that individual’s answer!
This question, what about YOU, demands an
answer, and even a silent response, one of those I’ll think about it later
responses, is an answer. The demand of
this question isn’t put-aside by our personal free will; it only intensifies
the importance of it. If we didn’t have
free will there would be no question; God would have placed the answer inside
us, and we wouldn’t be able to resist it.
But God gave us a choice, and that presupposes there will be
challenges to which way we will go.
Therefore, you must make up your mind about this question, because there
are (as C.S. Lewis pointed-out) only three possible answers: Jesus is LIAR, LUNATIC, or LORD!
For You Today
Tomorrow we will look at the answers; today would be a great start
on preparing to talk about this text this Sunday in church…you ARE going, aren’t
you?
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