Jump Start # 3387

John 8:57 “So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?”

As one walks through the Gospels, he will quickly see that Jesus said many shocking things. He didn’t say those things to get attention or draw a crowd. He said them because they were true. Bold. Outrageous. Unbelievable. Audacious.

Let’s walk through a few of those claims of Jesus.

1. Before Abraham was born, I am (John 8:58). This is the setting of our verse today. Abraham had been dead for more than a thousand years, and Jesus claimed he was before Abraham. Jesus didn’t look old. The Jews couldn’t get it that Jesus was revealing that He was eternal.

2. I came from Heaven (John 8:42). Here Jesus states, “for I proceeded forth and have come from God.” God is in Heaven, therefore Jesus came from Heaven. He’s not from here. He’s not like us.

3. Moses wrote about Me (John 5:46). Jesus says the Moses wrote about Me. How could that be if Moses was generations before Jesus?

4. I am greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42). Jesus says, “something greater than Solomon is here.” He was referring to Himself. Solomon was the wisest, king of Judah, son of David, and yet Jesus claims to be greater than Solomon.

5. The dead would be raised by My voice (John 5:28-29). The passage states that all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth. What authority and what power that represents.

6. Those who believe in Me will never die (John 11:25-26). The death Jesus has in mind is spiritual death, or eternal death. Jesus came to give life.

7. I am God. (Mark 2:5-11). When the crippled man was lowered through the roof, the first thing Jesus did was to forgive his sins. The Jews knew that only God could do that. To demonstrate that He had the right and authority to forgive, Jesus told the cripple to take up his bed and walk.

Back then, and even today, those statements are shocking. If they are true, and Jesus proved that they were by the fulfillment of prophecy, the signs and wonders He did and the testimony of His Father, then we must bow our heads and heart to Jesus. There is no one like Jesus. What He says ought to grab our attention. His words are the words that matter.

Jesus is Lord. He is not asking us to simply add church to our busy schedules. He is not asking us to be nice once in a while. The radical, audacious Jesus leads us on a journey that is bold, outrageous and unlike anything else. He wants us to let Him dwell within our hearts. He want us to place Him as Lord of our lives. And, when we do that, radical, audacious, and bold things begin to happen.

We forgive repeatedly

We love and pray for our enemies

We have sorrow for the wrongs that we do

We have a deep love for all people

We help anyone that we can

We long to please the Lord

We anticipate His coming

We want to spend forever with Him

He is Jesus, and He has changed our lives. We love Him. We follow Him. We want to be like Him. We can’t wait to be with Him.

“Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Can people tell that you have been with Jesus?

Roger