Luke 4:21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

There are those who say that Jesus didn’t claim to be divine, but here, at the very outset of His public ministry, He declares that He is the fulfillment of prophecy, and specifically, prophecy that the Jewish scholars had long agreed was Messianic. We don’t know at what point Jesus became self-aware, but certainly from the point of His baptism He had that assurance, since the Father spoke it out so that even others could hear it, that Jesus was His beloved Son. (Luke 3:22) As C. S. Lewis said, either Jesus was the Son of God, or He was the most brazen liar that ever lived. He wasn’t just “an inspired teacher,” as a lot of people try to claim. Countless people, and sadly, even a lot of Christians, put Him on a plane with Buddha or Mohammed: the founder of a religion. That’s a lie the devil pushes with all he’s got, but it just doesn’t work. Many, many people find the claims of Christ to be offensive, because they don’t want to submit to Him. Jesus’ glorious statement in the Upper room, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) is particularly irritating to them, because it completely invalidates every other religion. “How exclusionary!” they exclaim, again trying to place Jesus on the same plane as other religious leaders. If all religions are the same, none of them have any ultimate authority! Jesus was fully God and fully man, which offended the Jewish leaders as well, because, despite various Old Testament Scriptures, they insisted that “God has no Son.” This true union of God and Man is found in no other religion, but it is absolutely essential to the Gospel. If Jesus were not fully Man, He couldn’t have taken the sins of mankind on Himself as our representative. However, if He were not fully God, His death could not have been sufficient atonement for the entire weight of all our sins. The glorious reality is that Jesus was and is everything He said about Himself, and everything that was prophesied about Him before His birth, because He existed before the creation of the universe. It is impossible to express in words all that Jesus was and is, for all eternity.

This is something I have dealt with for most of my life. Ministering in Japan, the average person on the street doesn’t know Jesus from any other “foreigner” on the street, and they don’t particularly care. My challenge is to let them know what He has done in me, and that He loves them just as much as He does me. I think I’m pretty universally known as “a nice guy,” but they don’t know how nasty I am without Him! I’ve got to live as consistently as possible with Jesus as my Lord, speaking what He says to me and acting in obedience to what He shows me, and let the Holy Spirit sort it all out in the hearts and minds of those around me. Before I ask someone else to commit to Him as Savior and Lord, I’ve got to have that commitment myself.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the people to whom You have me ministering. I pray that they and those after them will indeed make that commitment, so that Your name may be acknowledged as holy and Your rule and reign me established as Your will is done, as perfectly on this earth as it is before Your throne in heaven. Thank You. Hallelujah!