Who Is Jesus?

December 15

We profess our belief in Jesus. Most people who have heard of Him affirm that He was ‘a good man.’ They believe He exemplified principles of interaction between men that, if they were to be followed, would allow peace to reign upon the earth.

Some attest that He was a prophet, a man sent by God to lay the groundwork for the purposes of the Most High to be fulfilled. Jesus had a word for Peter when he listed men’s varying perceptions of Him. Jesus asked him, “But who do you say that I am?” (See Matthew 16:13-20)

We who call ourselves Christians, we who are born again, take belief a step further to embrace the Biblical declaration of who Jesus is. We acknowledge that He is the righteous Son of our Holy God—the One who sacrificed Himself to redeem mankind from sin.

We further accept the Christian doctrine that there is “no other name given under heaven whereby men might be saved,” Acts 4:12. If an individual is to see God, if one is to dwell eternally in the glorious realm of Heaven, he must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In the world you shall have persecution, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” In John 15:18, He says, “If the world hates Me, it will also hate you.” II Timothy 2:12 acknowledges that suffering may follow us if we believe in Him, but that if we suffer for His sake, we shall also reign with Him.

Proponents of the ‘prosperity gospel’ would have us to believe that in accepting Jesus, our lives will become a ‘bed of roses,’ but this flies in the face of what HE says about our lot in life if we place our lives at His feet. He lets us know that we will be going against the grain of the world’s mindset and the world’s values if we embrace Him.

He tells us that the world will be antagonistic toward us if we choose the “narrow path” that leads to life rather than the world’s broad path that leads to destruction (see Matthew 7:13). Though persecution may come (for some reading this, it has already come) His promise is, “If you endure to the end, you shall receive a crown of life,” Matthew 24:13, James 1:12, Revelation 2:10.

If we believe Jesus is God incarnate, we know that no matter what we endure in this life because of our belief, we shall enjoy the glories of Heaven eternally; all our trials assure us that we, like Stephen, the first Christian martyr, will see Jesus rise from His throne to meet us when we arrive at our home in glory! (See Acts 6:8-15 and 7:1-60.)