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MONDAY THOUGHT 2/23/09

Jesus Christ, Nice Gentleman
 
“I love some of his ideas, but I just can’t buy into this God stuff.”  We’ve all heard Jesus dismissed with this ignorant wave of the hand.  Sorry, but it just doesn’t play.
 
Jesus is either the Son of God — the Messiah Himself — or he’s as loony  as Charles Manson (and even more dangerous).  Why?  Because Jesus claims to be The Messiah, The Chosen One.  That’s either egomaniacal arrogance of the flat-out truth.  Sorry, but no safe middle ground really  works.
 
My point:  The “Jesus the Great Philosopher” title only works for those who know little, believe less.  Either Jesus is God or He is a nut case.  Personally, I’ve seen enough to know the answer.  Lord and Savior it is, thank you. — jri
 
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying
the really foolish thing that people often say
about Him:  ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a
great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His
claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we
must not say. 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 a level with the man
who says he is a poached egg — or else he
would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make
your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the
Son of God: or else a madman or something
worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you
can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or
you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and
God.  But let us not come with any patronising
nonsense about His being a great human
teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He
did not intend to.”
        –    C. S. Lewis
               ( Mere Christianity)