Jesus Christ, the Messiah

Pastor Carol Grace ♦ April 14, 2010 ♦ Leave a comment

John 7: 25-27That’s when some of the people of Jerusalem said, “Isn’t this the one they were out to kill? And here he is out in the open, saying whatever he pleases, and no one is stopping him. Could it be that the rulers know that he is, in fact, the Messiah? And yet we know where this man came from. The Messiah is going to come out of nowhere. Nobody is going to know where he comes from.”28-29That provoked Jesus, who was teaching in the Temple, to cry out, “Yes, you think you know me and where I’m from, but that’s not where I’m from. I didn’t set myself up in business. My true origin is in the One who sent me, and you don’t know him at all. I come from him—that’s how I know him. He sent me here.”

Have you ever thought you knew something, perhaps an answer to a difficult problem? You were positive you understood all of the  aspects of puzzle and you were just as certain you knew the solution.  But then, at the last moment, you realized your solution would not solve the puzzle, but instead, just create more questions.

This is the situation in which the people surrounding Jesus found themselves.  They knew the Scriptures, they understood that a Messiah would come to set them free, but they misunderstood the freedom they were to be given.  The people in Jerusalem thought a king would come to set them free from the rule of the Romans, when in reality the freedom Jesus offered was so much greater than freedom from earthly dominion.  The freedom offered by Jesus was freedom from sin’s rule in their lives, and the restoration of a right relationship with God.

Jesus must have been so weary of teaching people who were dull of understanding.  The sad thing is that today, 2000 years later, some are still questioning if Jesus is the One, the son of the living God, come to earth to set the captives free.

Do you know Jesus as your Savior, as your Lord?  Do you know the One who sent Him as your Father?  We are in the springtime in North America, where the days are growing progressively longer until we reach the summer solstice.  But in the Kingdom view, the days leading up to Jesus’ return to this earth are growing shorter.  May you each know the answer to the puzzle–that Jesus is, indeed, the son of the living God and He is returning soon just as He said He would–on clouds of glory.  Be not deceived–many will come in His name, but there is only one Jesus Christ, the Messiah.  He is coming, He is coming soon.