In a time of prayer with His disciples Jesus asked them a question, “Who do the people say that I am” (Luke 9:18). Several answers were given but then Jesus got very personal. He said to His men, “Who do you say that I am” (Luke 9:18). Peter forwards an answer but the question was for the group. Indeed, any group gathered around Jesus must be engaged with this question.

Many times in North America Scripture is so individualized we overlook the fact that Jesus has called us to be His people. It is to His people that certain questions must be asked. Persons as persons must give answers but not as Lone Ranger Christians. His Church must continually hear the question, “Who do you say that I am?”

It is His Church who must continually be challenged to save its life by losing it (Luke 9:24). It is His Church, shaped and formed by His cross, that must come after Jesus in a spirit of self-denial and take of the cross (Luke 9:23).

It is His Church that is called to see through the present order and into an order where profit is not measured by what one has but by what one has released into the hands of God for the sake of others (Luke 9:25).

It is His Church that must lived unashamedly for Jesus in the present order of things, expectantly waiting for that day when Jesus “comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

Let us not be preoccupied with any thing that might preoccupy us. Instead, let’s open up our hearts to the Lord of the universe, and live for Him.

If Jesus would whisper into our ears some day in worship, “Who do you say that I am?” what would our answer be?

Jesus was always disappointing some religious person somewhere because of the way He received and embraced folks who were not religious. Some of the religious folks around Him just couldn't grasp that grace and mercy embrace and receive lost and broken people, not make them more lost and broken by rejecting them.

There always seems to be tension with many religious people in that, apparently fragile, matter of being in but not of the world. Maybe it's too difficult a balance to hold to for some. Or, maybe, the craving for personal piety is so strong that the threat of possible contamination trumps everything. It sure makes witnessing rough, though, when one is unable to be meaningfully IN the world because if you can't be IN then there's no way you can be WITH, and if you can't ever be WITH how is anybody other than the saved going to know how wonderful Jesus is?

Come to think about it, if our faith is so fragile that we can't be with unbelievers without fear of possible contamination, than the truthfulness of our faith might just be called into question. If we have faith in a Lord who loved to be among sinners and to eat with them and to fellowship with them, and to invite them in to the kingdom, and the expression of that faith prohibits our doing the same kinds of things, then we are not really of Jesus, are we?

Do you know anybody who does not love Jesus? Love them. Embrace them. Fellowship with them. Pray for them. Build a relationship with them. Receive them.

It's okay to love people. Jesus sure does. After all, He reached out to you one day and received you into His Family. What a great day for you that turned out to be.

How much more could one take? She was already a widow and the mother of only one child, a son. Now he, too, had died. Now she was alone. Now grief raged through her very soul. In the casket lay her boy. No! In the casket lay her very life. The future was in that casket. Hope was in that casket. Joy was in that casket.

In the midst of the procession to the graveyard Jesus happened by. He saw the casket, He saw the crowd, He saw the widow. Something moved Him deeply, so deeply that He did what no one in that culture would ever do on purpose. He reached out and touched the casket, making him ceremonially unclean. Then He spoke to the dead, "Young man, I say to you, get up" (Luke 7:14, NIV). Suddenly a funeral became a resurrection and Jesus gave this young man back to his mother.

Don't think for a moment that in this life Jesus always gives the dead back to the living. He simply doesn't. Yet, He does seem always to find a way to embrace death with the life of God. He is not beyond bringing the life of God into brokenness, grief and pain. Time after time Jesus has found a way to so touch situations and people that they
are, "filled with awe" (Luke 7:16).

What impresses you more, the fact that Jesus can work miracles or that Jesus' compassion toward people is such that His heart goes out to them (Luke 7:13)? Can you embrace a God who can draw near the hurting and involved Himself in their lives?

We are the people of Jesus and we are called to be like Him. So, let's be on the lookout for those who hurt. Let's seek to be aware of conditions and situations that tear at the very fiber of life.

Let's dare to let our hearts go out to others. May Jesus come near our world in us.

Jesus speaks of God in three ways. First, He sees God as the Father who sent Him; Secondly, He sees Himself as God; Thirdly, He sees the Holy Spirit as God (John 16:5, 10:30, 16:7-11). The God who is one speaks into the human situation in a triune way: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to clearly read Scripture without embracing this Sovereign mystery. It is at the heart of our faith. Our very first Article of Faith reads, “We believe in one eternally existent, infinite God, Sovereign of the universe; that He only is God, creative and administrate, holy in nature, attributes, and purpose; that He, as God, is Triune in essential beings, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Granted, it is theological language but it is not meant for the halls of academia. It is a reality that embraces our lives everyday. God is as up-close-and-personal as is the air we breathe. God is the Creator, the Savior and the Sustainer of all that is.

What belongs to the Father belongs to the Son and it is the Spirit who makes it known in our lives. Through the Spirit God is everywhere. He is here and half-a-world away at the same moment. That Jesus is Lord here and everywhere else at the same moment and in the same way is made possible by the awesome work of the Holy Spirit. At any given moment, anywhere in the world, the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is making the reality of God known.

Let the Holy Spirit embrace you and fill you today. He is Jesus’ gift to you.