DAYSIX

Luke 9:18-20

Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”

Recognize His Work
This seems like an odd exchange between the disciples and Jesus. Jesus asks his closest followers who they believe he is, after he had been with them for a while, he wanted them to confirm his identity. But the difficult thing is that the Savior came in a way that the people did not expect. They were thinking their Messiah was going to be a conqueror and was going to take over the government and completely shift their political structure. When Jesus did not do this, they assumed that Jesus must have been the one warning people that the actual savior must be coming. They assumed that this Jesus was making the way for the REAL savior. That is why Jesus has to ask his followers if they knew who he was. He needed to make sure that they could identify the Messiah as the one before them. It can be easy in retrospect to criticize those who did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah when he walked the earth, but I wonder, if Jesus were standing in front of us today, would we recognize him? Or would our expectations about what a Savior looks like, how a Savior acts, and who a Savior keeps company with get in the way? Would we be able to recognize where Jesus is working, even if it didn’t look like what we thought it should look like, even if it weren’t where we thought he should be working? Would we, like the disciples, be able to identify him, or would our socioeconomic status, theology, political affiliation, and experience keep us from declaring, “You are God’s Messiah.”

Questions:
Who do I know Jesus to be? Why do I think that?
In what ways do I expect Jesus to change my life? Where has this happened, and where has it not?

Prayer:
Lord, thank you for sending your Son and allowing us to be a part of what you are doing to save us. Please help us to change our mindset when it comes to seeing you working in the world. Give us the ability to see where we have created a savior that does not match up with who you are. Show us more and more of you so we can draw nearer. Amen.