Who am I?

There are many answers and very likely lots of them are true. You are the son or daughter of ‘so and so’. You are a man, woman, married, single, have children, no children, arty, musical, clever, practical - so the list goes on.

There are so many things that are different about each of us but we also have some common traits. We are all human. This covers a lot of ground. Our birth, our frailty, our fears, our flaws and mistakes, our hurt, our death.

Have you ever stopped to think why there are so many things we have in common? 

The Bible explains the reason. God created us in the first place ‘in his image’. This among other things gives us the capacity to be creative, think and make choices. The first man, Adam, made a choice to disobey one of the simple commands of God and as a result ‘sin came into the world’. This brings us to another common feature of humanity, we are mortal. We are naturally wayward, the Bible calls it sin. Let’s be honest, we all know that we disobey the law to varying degrees. That’s mans law, but we also disobey God’s law as well. The effect of sin on a day to day basis is the hurt, pain, aging and mistakes mentioned earlier. The ultimate common effect of sin in all of our lives is death. Death is an awful thing. It separates us from our loved ones, it causes pain and brings dark days into our lives. BUT, death also is the defining moment which seals our eternal fate. What we have believed in this life cannot be changed after death. Death is the gateway to the next world which the Bible describes as being one of two places, heaven or hell. Heaven being a place of conscious enjoyment and bliss, hell of conscious regret and suffering.

Who gave you the right to do that?

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Bible Reading - Mark 11:20-33

Sometimes when I am trying to tell someone about what I believe they respond like this. Don’t shove religion down my throat! Who gave you the right to tell me that?

 

The rulers of the nation of Israel were out to get the Lord Jesus. They didn’t like the attention He was being given and as far as they were concerned He was a major threat.

 

On the day in this incident the Lord Jesus was in Jerusalem walking though the Temple Precincts. He was confronted by the chief priests, the scribes and the elders of Israel. To these men the Lord Jesus was ‘a nobody’ and they were the top people in Israel. They were soon to learn that they were facing someone greater than they were. We must never forget that the Lord Jesus is the greatest person we will ever encounter. He is the ‘everlasting Father, the mighty God,’ Isaiah 9:6.

 

Take a moment to think about the questions they asked, v. 28. They were basically asking where do you get the power to do what you do and who gave you it. The questions were an admission of their own ignorance. They did not believe what the wise Jewish teacher, Nicodemus, said in John chapter 3 -  ‘no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him’. If Nicodemus could discover the truth, John.7. 50,51, 19. 39, so could they. They were choosing not to believe the truth.

 

There are many people in our world who have never heard the truth. It is our responsibility to tell them. Sadly we will often meet people in our society who have chosen not believe the truth. Our job is to live and preach the truth and pray that they will be saved.

These posts are aimed at people who are already believers in the Lord Jesus Christ