A man I’ve known for nearly two decades once commented that he needed to “get some religion in his life” like me. I was reminded of just how many people want their own Jesus – defined the way they choose. Like my friend, some want just a little Jesus in their life. Others believe in a great teacher called Jesus and some choose the loving Jesus or as I heard this week some want the “buddy” Jesus.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes –

“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 – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

The opening words to John’s Gospel make several bold statements. Take a couple of minutes to read the verses below and consider what they mean for your life.

In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1: 1-5,12-13