I’ve gotten a lot of things wrong in life. I’ve made tons of mistakes. Peter, too. He often put his foot in his mouth, said stupid things, and was rebuked by Jesus on more than one occasion. But he got one thing right – the most important thing – who Jesus was. There was a lot of speculation going on about who Jesus was. On one occasion, Jesus said, “Ok, you’ve told me what people are saying about who I am, but who do you say I am?” Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). On another day when Jesus asked the disciples if they were going to leave like many others, Peter declared, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe and we know you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).
Peter got it right! So should we. In fact, there’s nothing more important in life for the believer than to be accurate about who Jesus is. The Jesus of the Bible. Not the Jesus of the culture, the Jesus of denominations, the Jesus of movies, the Jesus of popular opinion. No! We need to embrace the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus Scripture portrays… the One who came to set the captives free, the One who the Old Testament declared as Messiah, the One who will judge the living and the dead, the One who will preside over the Great White Throne Judgment. It’s important that we put our faith in the WHOLE character of Jesus… His holiness, sovereignty, divinity, power, love, and justice.
Amir Tsarfati said, “The obstruction-free path that avoids the biblical absolutes of holiness does not lead to God – at least, not the real one. Instead, it creates a progressive god of one’s own making – a beautiful idol cast in the image of culture rather than the words of the Bible.” Hence, when we believe in some sort of made-up Jesus, we discredit the Bible, we diminish the purposes of God, and we reduce Jesus to just another man. We MUST believe in the Jesus of the Bible. Because declaring another Jesus leads people away from truth, rather than to it.
It's okay if we don’t get everything right because we’re human. But we MUST get Jesus right because that will determine the rest of our life… how we live, how we worship, how we witness, how we conduct our business. It will also put an urgency in our hearts for the gospel. No wonder we need to be students of the Word of God. Hope this encourages you today.