Who Is Jesus?

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”. . . Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. ---Matthew 16:13, 16, 17

All of us have experienced a time when there was a dawn of understanding, the curtain lifted up, the light bulb came on, or however you want to put it. Something that we heard, saw or felt became a part of us – a revelation that would change our world.

In this scripture, Peter, who had been living, eating, and walking by the side of Jesus for months and months suddenly realized just exactly who Jesus was. A typical man from Nazareth, yes, but there was something amazingly marvelous about Him that drew people. He had such a novel way of looking at things. He was militant about religion and those who were religious. He was unique, yet something very deep and ethereal swirled around Him. One could not put their finger on just what it was until this moment in time.

Jesus was with the disciples and His devoted followers. They had just had a discussion that was intertwined between leaven in bread and religious Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples suddenly got it! The light went on! They realized that the religious mind-set that was so cemented in tradition was a huge barrier to what Jesus came to do and that was to bring the Kingdom of God to the people of the earth.

Then Jesus made a sudden turn in His conversation and asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Not who do the Pharisees say I am, but who do the grass-roots people say I am. After hearing his friends say, Elijah or John the Baptist, suddenly, Peter got it! He told Jesus and the disciples that He was "Christ, the Son of the living God." In other words Jesus was the anointed One that came from God to this earth.

Jesus applauded Peter, congratulated and probably hugged him because he finally realized exactly who Jesus was! And with that, Jesus explained that idea didn’t come from Peter, it came from God, His Father, who is in heaven. Peter was in a train of thought or thinking outside the box, if you will, and opened His mind for the Father God to place that revelation in his mind. From that time on, Peter had a deeper knowledge of the purpose of Jesus. Even though he stumbled and faltered several times after that, Peter had a true concept of the deity of Jesus, that He was the long-awaited Messiah.

Let me ask you this: Is your mind open for the Father to place a revelation in your thoughts or your rationalization? There is so much that God wants to reveal to His children in these last days and we cannot receive those ideas or understanding until we are willing to accept the unusual, the supernatural or the ideas outside of the box.

Confession: Father, I may have been trained to think and accept religious tradition as the only way to think about You, the Kingdom, and about Jesus. But I want to be open to revelation and ideas that come only from You for the purpose of moving ahead in my destiny and expanding the Kingdom.