Friday 3 March 2017

Jesus is Divine

Jesus is Divine
The apostle John states,
“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,  but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.  
They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.  
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.” 1John 4:1-6.
Here John gives us a simple test how to determine who is of God and who is not. He states,
 “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,  but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”
This is the core belief of Christianity. Jesus is from God. He is God incarnate, the Saviour of mankind.
Henry Ward Beecher stated,
“If Christ is not divine, every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope decline.” Henry Ward Beecher.
Believing in the divinity of Jesus is important. It is the corner stone of Christian belief. There are many of other faiths who would disagree with this and that is their right.
There are however many out in the world who say they are Christians but deny the divinity of Jesus. You cannot be a Christian and deny the divinity of Jesus. Jesus himself at the risk of his life said he was one with God. John’s gospel records,
“The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  
I and the Father are one.
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?
“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”  John 10:24-33
C. S. Lewis made a very important statement when he said,
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
Please think about it. 

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