Jesus’s Claim.

“My heart is steadfast oh Lord, I will sing and make music with all my soul, I will awaken at the dawn and praise you oh Lord….(Psalm 108:1). Thank you Lord for the gift of music which lifts our hearts and enables us to express our love for you Lord and to recognise and receive your love for us as you make the events of the past really come alive to us. “As I look at the cross your Grace takes a hold of me.”

“My whole creation is like a vast eternal song, with poetic lines which extends into eternity and you know what? You are part of that song. A vital note to make the whole complete – that is why I have said in Ephesians 2:10 that you are my “workmanship” – the exact word is you are my poem – part of the whole. That is why I call everyone of My people to be the special note I have made them to be so that the song will be perfect in the end.”

We continue today in John 8 from vs 21 – 29 as we listen to Jesus’s revelation of who He is. “Who are you? “ is the central question in vs 25. So we think to ourselves, “have they not been listening?” But we should not be too hard on them. They were being faced with concepts and ideas that would have stretched any mind. Just as Jesus has been speaking about His own testimony and His Father’s testimony backing that up, He now tells them that He is about to go away and what is worse, they are going to die in there sin verse 21.

So confusing. A reminder that He is not of this world and that they cannot go with Him when He goes and then He follows that up with, “ you are going to die in your sins.” But then comes the proviso: “if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be”. That is bracketed by his statement that they will die in their sins verse 24. But who is He claiming to be?

By now we should be used to that word which John has been emphasising right from the beginning of his gospel. BELIEVE. The problem that has been becoming more obvious as we read through this Gospel is, what were the people are supposed to believe? Who is this they are expected to believe in? And what was preventing them from seeing that?

So it becomes apparent that Jesus’s identity was slowly being revealed and the people that met Him would have had an incomplete understanding of who He was. In this passage He mentions for the first time that He has to go away which is a prediction of his death. Later on in the passage in verse 28 he refers to that again as He speaks about being lifted up. He has already use that phrase in chapter 3, however it was far from clear as to what exactly He meant. It is easy for us to look back after the whole story has been told and to recognise these revelations He was giving. Yet those people would have had little point of reference to understand it.

At the end of the passage in vs 30 we see that many put their faith in Him. However we know that later on most of those people deserted Him. The problem was that they were putting their faith in a person without completely understanding who He was and what He had come to do.

As I contemplated this passage I realised that each one of us goes through a similar growing revelation and understanding of who Jesus is even after we have put our faith in Him. In fact we continue to grow in knowledge and understanding of Him and His ways and expectations all our lives. It is important that we realize how we need to grow in this area so that our faith will be continually strengthened.

One of the problems with some modern day preaching is that an image of Jesus is presented which is shallow and incomplete and people are asked to accept him without understanding who He really is and what He went through to save us. This accounts for many who set off on a Christian trajectory and end drifting away.

We also need to understand how we should give an answer for the hope we have to those who ask us.

Well dear friends enjoy every day this week as one that the Lord has made and given to us.