Vital Question

     A week ago today, a pastor friend of ours by the name of Steve Walters passed from this life into eternity.  He is in the Presence of Jesus, seeing and experiencing things we can't imagine!  While we grieve for ourselves, and his precious family, we don't feel sorry for him.  He would never want to come back.  Steve was our pastor during our years in South Dakota.  As we now live in Texas, we were not able to attend the funeral (which took place this morning).  I was so thankful to be able to watch it online.

Pastor Steve Walters and his wonderful wife Terry.  We were so blessed to be under their ministry.  Please pray for Terry in this time of adjustment after her husband's passing.  

     As I think back on my time under Pastor Steve's ministry (sometimes even privileged to do ministry with him), several things stand out.  He wanted to see people reached with the gospel.  That was vital to him.  Every time someone came to Christ in the church, or as a result of someone in the church, he would light a candle at the front of the sanctuary and keep it burning throughout the service that day, just so people would see that lives were being changed.  I loved that he did that.

     One of the questions he always asked, and encouraged us to ask others, was, "To you, who is Jesus?"  Some didn't care for that.  They felt that wording it that way was encouraging people to define Jesus on their terms.  I would agree, if you just ended the discussion after that. However, that was just a starting point for a conversation about Christ.  Besides, that question was pretty much what Jesus Himself asked in Matthew 16.15, "Who do you say I am?"

     The answer to this is so important, because it determines our eternal destiny.  If the question were just "Who is Jesus?" it would be a point of fact.  But making it personal, "To you, who is Jesus?" puts some responsibility onto the person being asked.  We have to make a decision, and we only have this one life one earth to make it.

     Many people say that Jesus was just a good teacher.  But that really doesn't make sense.  Jesus claimed things a good teacher would never claim.  He claimed to be one with God (John 10:30).  He claimed to have been alive before Abraham of the Old Testament (John 8:58).  He claimed to have shared glory with the Father before the world began (John 17:5).  He claimed to forgive sins (Matthew 9:5).  He claimed to be the only way to Heaven (John 14:6).  He predicted his death and resurrection multiple times (Matthew 16:21, Mark 8:31, Luke 12:22...to name a few).  If someone were a good teacher, but not the Savior, it would be evil to claim such things, and that would make the person a very bad teacher.  Either Jesus is who He claimed to be, or He isn't, but he can't be just some nice teacher.  I think I'm a pretty nice teacher, and I certainly don't claim anything like this.  We are required to make a decision for ourselves about it.  Something that might make it a little easier is that Jesus fulfilled His prediction about rising from the dead (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20).

     We live in a world that doesn't want to make a decision about who Jesus is.  They like the idea of a nice teacher encouraging people not to judge (or whatever else they like to interpret from His actual teachings).  But if you look at everything Jesus said and did, you have to conclude much more than that.  Jesus Himself doesn't give us any other option.  You must either conclude He is the Son of God, crucified for our sins, risen the third day, or you must conclude He was a fake.  Pretty hard to fake the miracles He performed.  If he was fake, people around would have caught onto it.  The Pharisees were constantly trying to trip Him up.  It would be very hard to fake the transformation in the lives of His disciples early in the book of Acts.  His disciples eventually were willing to endure torture and death for Jesus.  Most people don't do that for something they know to be fake.

     A book I found fascinating on this subject was Cursed with Common Sense, by Nicole Nelson.  The author shares her journey to understanding who Jesus is.  She was as skeptic, and is now a Christian.  You can check it out here.

     As we mourn the loss of a wonderful servant of God from this earth, we know where he is, because he was able to answer that question about who Jesus really is.  Can you?