“Who do YOU say that I am?” -Jesus
When reflecting on this question, many answers come. He is my King, my God, my great friend, my mentor, my guide, my consoler, my redeemer…
He is many things, yet in all of them He is love. Each of the above “roles” are just different expressions of this love – for me and for all of us.
Where I get challenged is when I ask myself this question:
Do I always behave as if I truly believe Jesus is all of these things?
So often I get confused, worried, fearful, nervous, anxious and many other similar things. If I really did believe that Jesus were all of these things, these experiences shouldn’t be possible.
When I reach times of clarity, the answer to “who do you say that I am?” is undeniable.
The issue is that I quickly lose my grasp on that conviction when things are unclear or messy.
Too often I allow his ability, desire and role to be overshadowed by the enemy – allowing satan’s delusions of the hopelessness of Jesus’ rescue mission to reside in my mind and heart.
Knowing that Jesus is all of the above things – our King, our God, and one who loves us more dearly than we can imagine – this idea of His plan being hopeless is ridiculous.
Where the enemy seeks to confuse and complicate – Jesus simplifies and clarifies.
Sometimes it’s helpful to remind ourselves of TRUTH, for example:
- Jesus is God and King over all – past, present and future
- Jesus loves all of us and desires each of our salvation
- Jesus gives each of us the free will to choose Him or reject Him
- Jesus desires that we each choose Him and wants to spend eternity with each of us
- Jesus shows us how to live in response to our choice and invites us to follow Him in living out our choice
Today has no shortage of crises. There’s A LOT of noise and distractions coming at us – it’s very easy to get swept away from this truth, again and again.
Regardless of how many times these waves sweep us away, Jesus calls us back to Him through this simple and unalterable truth. In doing so, we find ourselves back on solid ground.
The only way we can help Him is if we remain on solid ground – not when we’re tumbling around being swept away by the winds and waves of the world.
The unfortunate reality of our world today is that too few people are aware of the above truths – they either haven’t been taught them or they’ve lived far from solid ground for too long to recognise it.
Our job, as servants of the King, is two-fold:
- Find and remain on solid ground, anchoring ourselves to these truths and to Him.
- Stay with Him – growing in our knowledge of Him, loving Him and imitating Him through our service to others.
His two commandments to love God with all our strength, mind and heart and to love others as ourselves sums his entire teaching up into one. This can only be applied if we’re standing firm on solid ground.
As we advance in our walk with the Lord, we may become less susceptible to many of the old traps the devil would have snared us with. Thanks be to God, we’ve each overcome many of the sins that used to be a challenge for us.
That said, our enemy knows that he doesn’t always need to trip us up through our own sin – sometimes it may be enough to simply distract and disable us from being ready servants for whoever Jesus plans to place on our paths.
In order to not miss ANY opportunities to serve our King and assist whatever soul he desires us to be a light to, we need to be vigilant against any and all distractions that could disable us.
It’s not always as simple as saying “this activity is bad, never do it”.
For example, reading the news (for me) is a constant source of disorientation and distraction. However, there may be times when Jesus needs me to be aware so that I’m not taken by surprise and thus able to respond to a future situation with love.
What matters more is if we’re asking our King, our great friend, our mentor what it is He wants us to do (or not do)?
A great question to ask yourself throughout the day:
Did Jesus assign this work / activity or did His enemy? Which of them wants me to engage in this activity for the next ____ minutes?
With a heartfelt prayer for clarity as you ask this, Jesus will expose whether the activity is necessary for your service to Him or a distraction from His enemy.
Stay on solid ground today, my friends, and serve our King with the joy that comes from complete trust and confidence that He has already conquered all that may be upsetting us.
life awake 