“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 NLT)
The lie that cripples a lot of people, whether they’re trying to make sense of why they should come to Christ, or that can prevent them from developing what faith they desire to have in Him, is the whole issue surrounding the God-Man, Jesus.
When I was pastoring in Ohio, there was a woman who was very faithful in attending services, but whenever the subject of Jesus’ divinity came up, she always had questions. Often, I would point out Scriptures that affirmed Jesus as the Son of God, God poured into human flesh, but there was something that was preventing her from believing. Actually, it was “someone,” but human arguments couldn’t persuade her.
That’s not uncommon. If you think about it “logically,” as a believer, it makes perfect sense, but for a person who isn’t filled and enabled by God’s Spirit to “see” God’s Truth, it’s going to seem like nonsense. Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 2:1: “But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves.”
Satan can couch “lies” in such believable terms that unsuspecting people will “swallow” them hook, line, and sinker. A popular argument that especially younger people continually hold to is “proof!” Show me proof! Yet, when proof is presented to them mathematically in the astronomical odds of any one person in history fulfilling the Messianic prophecies, they just shrug.
If you follow the flow of history, from the Garden to today, given all the advances of modern science, medicine, the arts, technology, and many other areas, where has it gotten us? Is the world better today than when God destroyed the earth with a flood? Sin may be more sophisticated and attractive, but it’s no less deadly. Fear is rampant and nearly every day there’s someone blowing something up or shooting people, young and old, for no other reason than the depravity of man.
We are sinners in need of a Savior, and no man this earth could ever produce could qualify. Only a God-man – God poured into human flesh in the womb of a virgin, unstained by human involvement, perfect man, and perfect God sent to us in the form of an infant. Only God could perfectly fulfill the demands of a holy and righteous God; only God could defeat the temptations of evil; only God could be a suitable sacrifice for the sins of all of mankind; only God could be so loving and so selfless as to lay down His sinless life for the benefit of others; only God!
Even as I write, my mind goes to thoughts of the senseless murder of the only perfect Person to ever live. How could “they” have done such a horrific thing? But here’s the truth. Had you and I been living then, we’d have likely been just as blinded to His perfection as the religious people who engineered His demise. Our sin put Him on the Cross as surely as the sins of the Pharisees and their Roman cohorts.
Today, by the grace of God and the illumination of His Spirit, we see Jesus for who He is – God in human flesh – who lived and died to do for us what we could never in eternity ever have done for ourselves. We’re His holy “hands and feet” to together embody His presence and influence those in our spheres of influence.
By God’s grace and with the Holy Spirit’s help, let’s become such advocates for our living Savior that our family and friends can see how believable the divinity of Jesus is by the way we live, and move, and have our being in Him.
Let’s be, individually and collectively, the evidence that Jesus is God through the way we love and live to His honor and fame.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 