"Who Do You Say That I Am?"

It was Jesus' question to the disciples for which Peter had the correct answer. "You are the Christ of God." It is the most important question in life. If we answer this question wrong it could have eternal consequences for us. The world is not run by men, its run by ideas and ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences.

When the disciples were powerless to heal the sick, preach and cast out demons they asked Christ the reason for their impotence. He answered them directly, "It is because of your unbelief". Belief enables, unbelief disables. A proper perspective of God gives us a proper perspective of the value of human life. 40 million unborn infants have been massacred in this country in the last 35 years because we haven't answered the question correctly, "Who do you say that I am?"

When we fail to understand the truth about who Jesus is, we begin to distort truth about all other things. Sin becomes a disease instead of a trangression against God. Death is a transition from one incarnation to another even though Jesus said, "It is appointed unto man once to die..." Salvation is achieved by looking inward and tuning into our higher self. No need for a Savior, we can save ourselves.

This deception that has wormed its way into our culture is like rat poison. It still looks good, it still tastes good but it is deadly. A little heresy added to a whole lot of truth can bring eternal death.

The greatest deception is how our culture answers the greatest question. A deadly poison is added to the truth when we believe Jesus is just another prophet. or just another great man. Modern movies and books portray Jesus as having been married, having fathered children or having had a lover. Wrong answer the to most important question!!

C.S. Lewis said you can't possibly say Jesus is just "a great moral teacher. 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...or 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..."

"Who do you say that I am?" To the hungry, he is the bread of life. To those living in darkness he is the light of the world. To those who have lost their way and are tired of the cultural lies he is the way the truth and the life.

Hitler answered the greatest question wrongly and killed 6 million Jews. Mussolini answered the question wrongly and it led to fascism. Stalin answered the question wrongly and millions died as a result of communism, a bad idea with deadly consequences. If there was one question I'd like to ask President Obama it would surely be this one, "Who Do You Say Jesus Is?"

It's a question we can't ignor...we must answer. We can choose wrongly in a lot of areas of life and still recover, but if we choose wrongly in answering this question it could determine where we spend the next hundred million years.