Lord? Savior? King? Just Who Are You?

Thursday, February 9, 2023

On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me!  Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!  For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”  (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him.  But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)  When the crowds heard him say this, some of them declared, “Surely this man is the Prophet we’ve been expecting.”  Others said, “He is the Messiah.”  Still others said, “But he can’t be!  Will the Messiah come from Galilee?  For the Scriptures clearly state that the Messiah will be born of the royal line of David, in Bethlehem, the village where King David was born.”  So the crowd was divided about him.  Some even wanted him arrested, but no one laid a hand on him.  John 7:37-43

Jesus’ teaching in the temple was not clouded.  The people who heard him could not have mistaken what he meant when he offered “living water” – it was Messiah-talk.  But they got divided over Jesus’ pedigree…and thus it goes, day after day, century upon century.

It’s hard for someone like me to look critically on those who had questions in their hearts about just who (or what) Jesus was going to be in their lives.  After all, I’m a logic-driven male child; I live to divide my own thoughts.  I like to think things through until the box is all well-defined; then I want to seal it and preserve what I’ve discovered forever!  (Why do you think I write a blog?)

There are those who live on the other side of the brain; they intuitively feel and sense their way through stuff in a manner totally-alien to my brain.  The difference between us is much like the difference between a foot-soldier with a rifle who thinks:  ready-aim-fire, versus a technician getting ready to shoot a guided missile who is trained to ready-fire-aim.  That tech guy launches the missile, then steers it all the way to the target.

Whether you’re a cautious-stepper or a freestyle-leaper, Jesus has always caused division.  Life’s journey and the Kingdom of God have always had (and needed) both. 

For You Today  

My word today is to the cautious.  Like me, you tend to want to know it all before you do anything.  If you question Jesus like a prosecuting attorney, with the purpose of removing every last doubt before taking the leap of faith with him, you’ll find it’s still a leap of faith at the end.

Point from one who has been there – take the leap – he’s ready to catch you.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

What Do You Think?  and  Rivers of Living Water 

This is an updated version of “Division in the Crowd published on Rocky Road Devotions May 8, 2013

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©