““He must become greater; I must become less.”

As you know, I like to run. As I run, I like to listen to music and talk to and worship the Father. While I don’t always use those exact words, I am continually asking that His will be done and that “He must become greater; I must become less.” I ask God that He increase and I decrease.

You see, the Christian life is not about me, it’s about Christ. It’s not about my talents he has given me or the success of Northstar. It’s not about my advancement. It is about the place He wants me to be. It is about the purpose He has for me. It’s not about my marriage, it’s about the Godly family He wants me to lead. It’s not about how much money I make, it’s about being grateful for whatever He has given me and using it for His purposes and glory.

It’s not about my trials and hurts and struggles, people cutting me off on the highway, or inconsiderate salespeople, or not being able to find the remote control, or even a Florida State loss. It’s about being like Him. It’s not about my dreams of 25 satellite churches, 2,500 small groups and 25,000 people attending Sunday services, it’s about His plans. It’s not about my aspirations and goals, it’s about His will.

Many people believe the Christian life is about God and about me. Actually, it is all about Him. It’s not about me living independently and incorporating Him in my life. It’s about living completely dependent on Him and clinging to Him.

The Christian life is not about Him loving me and me also loving me. Our focus has to be on Christ, and by that I mean on Christ’s spiritual and eternal purposes and not on our earthly and temporary needs and desires.

This requires us to pause and take stock of our willingness to put ourselves in the background. We walk in faith, which to some of us, is our hope that God will give us what we need if we trust Him. And, we believe we are owed these things because we go to church, and tithe. We equate God blessing us with a good paying job, a nice house, and a relatively new car. But that is not becoming less. That is seeing God as the means for us to be greater. We turn Him into a financial planner and thereby lessening Him.

This passage teaches us that Jesus is the one who came from Heaven. Jesus is God, and He gives eternal life to man. To the degree that Jesus becomes greater in our hearts and in our lives, we are truly happy and contented.

John exhibited the type of humility that says I am here only to be used by the living God. Matthew 23”11-12 says, “ The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

My prayer for each of us who call Northstar home is that, in everything, may we only be an arrow pointing to Christ – In every word, every action, every song, small group meeting, and communication.

He must become greater; I must become less.

““He must become greater; I must become less.”

This is an amazing statement.This was not a one-time comment made at a moment of epiphany. John continually pointed to God and took the focus off of himself. This is obvious in his words in Matthew 3:11, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John was stunned and insisted that he needed to be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around.

This verse is not a record of John’s decline, but an important teaching for all us who are followers of Jesus. “He must become greater, I must become less.” John gave us a life principle, a basic tenet of Christianity.

What does it mean to us living in Panama City in the later stages of 2011 when we say, “He must become greater, I must become less”? I believe it means that our basic purpose is to glorify Jesus, rather than pursuing our own self-promotion and self-satisfaction.

I heard someone say once that “Knowing God makes us humble; knowing ourselves keeps us humble.” Imagine how the world would be different if we took to the task of lessening ourselves in order for Christ to become greater.

Most Christians have a common passion to be a source of blessing to those far from the heart of God. But, we are human and we tend to think inward as well as outward. We seek greatness in ourselves which we believe will translate into greatness for God. Who amongst us does not desire to be great? But, as believers we need to be different. We need to glorify Jesus more and more and our self less and less.

Part 4 – The Bottom Line

The blog posts for this and next week center around 8 words from John the Baptist found in the book of John.

“He must become greater; I must become less.” -John 3:30.

In this powerful passage of scripture, John the Baptist gives us the greatest principle of humility for our relationship with God.

Let’s look at this passage in a little more detail. John the Baptist did not retire when Jesus began his ministry. John 3:23, says “Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized.” It was a little late in the game to be baptized by John, because the attention and thus the crowds had switched to Jesus, yet he still was serving God.

John’s disciples, however, were engaged in an argument with a Jew over the issue of ceremonial washing. If they were like John, this would have been a non-issue, but as it was, it had become contentious. They took the issue and the argument to John the Baptist.

Look at verse 26. “They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.” This is somewhat predictable when you consider that John’s ministry was once an exciting movement. These disciples of John had been filled with awe at the work God was doing, bringing so many people out to repent of their sins and be baptized. People’s lives were changed. God’s hand of blessing was upon their work.

But perhaps they had not really heard what John was saying. From the beginning, John made clear that he was not the Messiah, and that there was one to come after him. He taught repeatedly that the kingdom of God was near, and that they should be ready.

Jesus’ ministry began to eclipse John’s. So, in a real way. John’s work was successful because people’s hearts had been prepared for the coming of the Lord. But to some people, probably like today, many people were merely following the crowd. Like fickle fans, one day they followed the crowds to John, and then the next they followed the crowds to Jesus.

Either way, John’s ministry was in decline. They had given their lives to follow John. They were loyal. But, nobody wants to work for a losing cause. They wanted things the way they were.

John’s response is in verse 27. “To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.” John simply points to what God was doing, and what God had given.

Look at verses 28-29. “You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.”

John uses an effective analogy. The responsibility of the groomsman is to prepare the way for the bridegroom so that he can receive his bride and be united with her. He had accomplished that purpose and his joy was complete.

Part 3 – What Does This Mean For Us Today?

My blog posts for the next few weeks will be built around 8 words from John the Baptist found in the book of John.

“He must become greater; I must become less.” – John 3:30

I absolutely love these 8 words because it reminds me that my life must decrease and become smaller so that the glory of Christ will shine through. These eight words are always a timely reminder of God’s sovereignty, but I think especially so amidst the success of Northstar over the last few years. Let me explain.

As you know, Northstar is entering 2012 with a new vision of what we can accomplish for God in our area and beyond. We have big plans to further God’s kingdom in a big way. And, why not? We have come a long way in a short time. Northstar is a good old fashioned success story. We are one of the fastest growing churches in Florida. Lives are being changed weekly. People are asking for our “methodology” and our “tightly-held secrets.” Yes, some may see us as “all that.” But, John’s 8 words remind me that I have to be ever vigilant so that we don’t bask too much in our press clippings and lose sight of what is important, and more importantly, who is important. It also serves as a reminder of who is ultimately responsible for any success Northstar has achieved.

I must be wary that I focus so much on exegesis, that I forget the example of Jesus and self-aggrandizement. If our vision is to be successful, we must become less, as Jesus becomes more.

Let’s look at this quandary through the example of John the Baptist. Here was a humble man. When you think about it, John the Baptist was a BMOC and rockstar at that time, and had a lot to brag about. For example, John’s birth was miraculous. He was born to an elderly barren woman, and an angel announced his future birth to his father, similar to the announcement given to Mary on Jesus’ birth. The angel said that John “for he will be great in the sight of the Lord,” that he would be “filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born,” and that he would “bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God” (Luke 1:15-16). I’d say that qualified him to appear in People magazine or have books written about him, wouldn’t you?

In addition to this, John the Baptist was the one who would fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3, which says, “A voice of one calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” John was the one chosen by God to prepare the way for the Savior of the world’s coming. And don’t forget, he was chosen by the Father to baptize Jesus Christ. Whoa. Somehow that seems to trump garnering some attention at a pastor’s convention, or any individual honors we have won.

However, despite all of these credentials, all the honors that John acquired, he never became arrogant. He lived in the desert, wore clothes made of camel’s hair, and ate locusts and wild honey.

That simple phrase, “He must become greater, and I must become less,” characterized the life and ministry of John the Baptist. Though he certainly could have become puffed up with a sense of superiority, he remained humble and always gave the glory to God.

Part 2 – The Rest of the Story

OK, now we will talk about money. It is unavoidable and unscriptural to talk about stewardship without talking about the money God has entrusted to us.

“I knew it. Ok, Marty how do Christian stewards use their material blessings?”

I will answer that. But, before I do, I am reminded of one of Jack Benny’s memorable comedy routines. For those of you who are not retired Jack Benny was one of the leading American entertainers and was tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s. He told a story about a thief who accosted him, demanding “your money or your life.” After a long pause, and at the insistence of the hold up man, Benny finally responded, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

While attempting to be funny, this is not all that far-fetched. We have a hard time parting with our money, especially in these tough economic times.

That reluctance to part with our money is due to our misguided notion that we own it. and that by keeping the money we will have security and comfort for our entire lives. We have discovered in 2008 that money can disappear as fast as it sometimes appears. The money that we have and all the things that we own are God’s possessions. Everything in this life that we have is given to us by our heavenly Father. The Apostle Paul puts matters quite clearly when he writes, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” – 1 Tim. 6:7. Let’s look at that verse in a little more detail.

We come into the world with nothing. Even Bill gates came into the world with nothing. But, since then he has managed to accumulate a vast fortune. Some of us have done well, some not so well. But the fact is, we started with nothing.

We leave with nothing. Bill gates can’t take his money with him and neither can you or I. So, we will leave this earth the same way we entered it.

We have responsibility for the stewardship of all that we are given in between. It makes sense that if we don’t start or end with money, then the time between those two events is when God provides us with resources. Given that scenario, the following are the possibilities and the consequences.

If I give nothing, I cast a vote to close my local church and limiting missionary activity. Conversely if I give according to Biblical standards, I make it possible for my church to plan in advance.

So, here is the bottom line on stewardship and money.

God puts money in the pockets of Christians to accomplish His ends. Theoretically it would be seem improbable to have a church filled with people of great faith that has financial problems. Giving is both a thermometer of our faith and our love. When giving to God, we are just relinquishing control of what belongs to Him.

Stewardship isn’t mainly about meeting budgets. It’s more about opening our lives to God’s Spirit. That’s why stewardship and growth go together. Today many people are still confused about many aspects of Christianity. Therefore, the simple Christian stewardship principles of giving of our time, talents and money to God to be used in the name of Jesus Christ makes the complicated more simple.

When our hearts are tuned toward the blessings that God has bestowed upon us, we cannot pass on the chance to share those blessings with others. In our day and time, our giving is at least about our money, the most tangible resource we have.

I have talking about what stewardship means to us as Christians. To continue that discussion, stewardship is lived out in the following ways.

First, by living and telling the Good News. Remember that a steward is someone who has been given a task to do by someone else or who has been given something by someone else to use for the purposes of the owner. It is like you commissioned an artist to do a portrait of your child and he did a flowered landscape. He was not a good steward of the money you gave him.

It is amazing just how much God has put His trust in us. He has trusted us individually and corporately with the only message that can save the world. Think about that for a second. We have the opportunity and are entrusted by God to share this good news intentionally with those who have yet to experience it. That should make us fall in love with the Gospel all over again when we remember that it takes sinners like you and I and saves us. What a wonderful Gospel that not only saves us but gives us the ability to save others.

Secondly, stewardship is how we employ our God-given human resources, gifts, time and abilities. The question of how we use these resources, given to us by God, is a question often seen as one targeted at the rich and talented. But is it? If you think you don’t fit into either of those groups, and as a result believe stewardship does not apply to you, I suggest you read the story of the widow’s mite (or copper coins) found in Mark 12:42.

Thirdly, we are called to use our time faithfully and in the service of others. While we must first take care of our family, we should also at all times consider the needs of others along with those of ourselves. Using our time means that we are constantly looking to glorify God. This involves a concerted effort on our part to cooperate and conform to God’s will. How we use our God-given gifts is another question we are challenged to evaluate as stewards. So, whether we are a CEO or a janitor, we should find ways ways to use these gifts for God’s glory.

Next, stewardship is providing for future generations. Have you ever considered the idea that we are the stewards of our relationships? Marriages need our attentive stewardship to succeed. And, of course relationships include our children, and parents to name a few. I often think about the overwhelming responsibility we have in raising our children? They are God’s, yet we must be good stewards if they are to live a full life. Some of us have parents that are starting to need our assistance as well I believe we have a moral and ethical responsibility to help our parents the best we can as they grow older. After all, they were our stewards not so long ago.

Next, stewardship is also sharing in the life, worship, and mission of the church. Worship is rooted in gratitude for what God has done for us. Worship also is rooted in gratitude for what God will do through us. As stewards of the church, we should not be passive recipients of God’s gifts. We should be active participants in continuing the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ, which is Northstar’s essential mission. This mission—proclaiming and teaching, serving and sanctifying—is the personal responsibility of each one of us in the Church. All members of the Church have our own roles to play in carrying out our mission.

God gives us this divine-human workshop, this world and Church of ours. Being a good steward over our whole life liberates us to pursue our walk with God with more passion. The Spirit shows us the way. Stewardship is a big part of that journey.

Stewards of More Than Money

Yes, stewardship involves many aspects of our life that are non-financial. Stewardship is a lifestyle based on the biblical belief that God owns everything and that we are stewards, or managers, of His stuff. Look at Psalm 24:1: “The
earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

When we understand that, “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” we can see that we are merely temporary owners/managers (or stewards) of things that God really owns.

So, it begs the question, What does God want me to do with the possessions, skills, etc., that He has given me to manage for Him?

Look at 1 Peter 4:10: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

Peter is talking about spiritual gifts. A look at verses in the Bible on stewardship gives you a much broader picture than just money.

“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” – I Corinthians. 4:2

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” – Ephesians 5:15-16

And, the most commonly used scripture passage on stewardship is the parable of the talents. – Matthew 25:14-30. I encourage you to read this parable when you have a moment.

One of the best models of stewardship is a familiar Bible story for those of you who grew up in Sunday School. That being the story of the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10:25-37. This story is a example of stewardship that applies
just as easy to the times we live in, as it did in the 1st century. The Samaritan considers what he has as resources that can be tapped when a need arises. Everything he has, his donkey, his wine and oil, and his money he quickly gives
in the service of helping someone, even a stranger, in need. I doubt that any of us have had such dramatic and unexpected opportunities to meet the needs of others as the Good Samaritan. We probably have faced more subtle
opportunities to help someone. The question is have we used our resources of donkeys, wine oil and money (or whatever resources you have) to meet needs in our community, including our church, our city, and our world. In its
simplest yet deepest sense, this is Christian stewardship.

So, although the scriptures have a lot to say on the stewardship of our money, it is clear our lives are more multi-faceted than money and just how much God entrusts to our care.

Part 3 – Other Facets of Stewardship.

Christian stewardship is one of the most important topics for believers to understand.

Mention stewardship and most people immediately think about money. Mention stewardship and a lot of people moan inwardly and mentally prepare themselves for another fund raising campaign. Some may mutter that “fortunately,
the church only talks about stewardship once a year.” Is stewardship only about money? Is a stewardship emphasis really a fund raising campaign that comes once a year? No and no.

So first, we need to deal with the misconceptions about stewardship. Perhaps the most obvious misconception that needs to be eliminated is the popular notion that stewardship merely is a religious synonym for fund raising, or
shorthand for financing the work of the church. Unfortunately, that thinking is far from the truth.

A good illustration of stewardship is the film the Lord of the Rings. The main character, Frodo, is entrusted with a task to do. In the Return of the King, Frodo is aware of the debt he owes, and gives himself fully to the task. Compare
and contrast the Steward of Gondor, who imagines himself to be the king and has set himself on the throne of Gondor, instead of guarding it for its rightful owner. In those two characters we see what stewardship is and what it is not.

A steward is a strange word these days but the concept permeates throughout our culture. We just call it different things. A steward is someone who has been given a task to do by someone else or who has been given something by
someone else to use for the purposes of the owner. A steward acts as an agent of the owner, but they are not the owner. Or as one dictionary puts it – someone who manages property or other affairs for someone else.

The key is that when something is entrusted to you, it is not yours, no matter how well you convince yourself otherwise. The person who entrusted it to you has the right to determine what you do with it, while it is on loan to you. You
may well find yourself using whatever it is that has been entrusted to you for purposes that are at complete odds with what you would use it for.

So what is Christian stewardship? Stewardship is everything we do after we say we believe in Jesus Christ.

Christian Stewardship is not a program. It is a challenge and a privilege that effects the whole of our lives as Christians. This means that we are stewards of everything God has given us: our time, our abilities, our possessions, and our
money. Real Christian stewardship describes not our relation to what we possess, but our relation to God who possesses us.

In the next few blog posts I will attempt to increase our understanding of what Christian stewardship is and what it is not.

Next Part 2 -Stewards of More Than Money.

How can you really know what happened 2000 years ago

Robin Hood is a good yarn, but since I didn’t live during the crusades, there is no way of proving it actually happened. One of the common tactics skeptics use to question the validity of the Bible is to say that “since none of us were there, no one can really say what happened 2000 years ago.” While there is some truth to that statement, it is an illogical argument against something having been documented in history. Here’s why. None of us were also around when President Lincoln was shot, so technically, we can’t “prove” that John Wilkes Booth shot him at Ford’s Theater. However, if there is enough historical documentation attesting to this event and corroborated historically by enough eyewitnesses, combined with absolutely no documented claims denying these facts, logic demands we accept this assassination as historically true. To deny this would be illogical and unscientific.

The same holds true for the Bible. Skeptics, of course, have a tendency to discount the Biblical accounts because the Bible is “just a religious book,” but not a historical record. But that is not true. The Bible is a book of history, documented by eyewitnesses the actual events of that time in history, in addition to being the word of God. Don’t believe me, pick up any number of books that have been written, some by converted atheists, that is conclusive proof from science and logic that God exists and the Bible is true.

“If God is so loving, why does He allow evil and suffering?”

This is the most common question. How can you have a God of love and have so much pain and hurts in the world. Modern skeptics often conclude that tsunamis, genocide, children starving, war, etc., make the existence of a loving, all-powerful God impossible. Doesn’t He care?

Let’s look at it from a different viewpoint. Exactly what should God do? Yes, he could stop all that from happening. But follow that line of thought to its inevitable conclusion. People are hurt by lies, by cheating in marriage, by auto accidents, by unethical behavior, by stealing, and murder, and about 500 more manifestations of human behavior. God would also have to stop all those things as well. He would have to stop every person in the world. Or at least turn them into mindless robots without any free will or choice. And that includes me. I have done things to hurt people. I’m sure you have as well. To destroy the evil in the world, He would have to destroy all of us.

God does care. He knows when humans suffer. But, let’s remember, God isn’t human. He is God. His perspective is greater than we can imagine. He sees the “bigger picture” – that our experiences, however painful or unhappy, will be to our eventual benefit. I believe the Savior who gave His life for us would not allow such things to happen otherwise.

I am reminded of taking my son for his regular vaccinations. When the needle was stuck into that little arm, Andrew howled, and looked at me as if to say, “Dad, why are you allowing this horrible thing to happen to me. Don’t you love me?” It was painful for me to watch but I knew that it would be over in a few seconds and would benefit and protect my infant child. A minor, brief pain is the price that Andrew paid for a healthier life later.

Just as Andrew cannot possibly understand the motives of his parents when he was a small child, so too we cannot appreciably comprehend God’s will for us.

The Bible teaches that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). It is reassuring to know that when God allows suffering, He is accomplishing something good. Some of the good things God can accomplish through our suffering are helping us grow in Christian maturity (James 1:4), developing Christ-likeness (Romans 8:28-29), and helping us grow in personal holiness (Hebrews 12:10).

We may not be able to see any good coming out of our trials. And sometimes the trials can seem excessive. But, we can be confident that God’s eternal purposes are being fulfilled. Someday, we will see the beautiful work God has accomplished, partly through suffering.

Pastor’s Note: I encourage to learn the basics of apologetics over time so that you will be ready to defend our faith and our God. If you have questions or need recommendations for materials on this subject please email me or call the church.

As we said in part 1, apologetics is defending Christianity. Skeptics have tried for at least 2,000 years to find ways to discredit the Bible and the concept of God sending His son, Jesus, the messiah to save all those who believe in His name. When Jesus was alive people debated who and what He was, in an effort to discredit Him. Things have not changed. Today we have a continuing flow of charges and attempts to minimize Jesus, one of the recent examples being the book, The DaVinci Code. The book makes many claims that are at odds with Christian teachings. Author Dan Brown’s conspiracy fantasy has Jesus Christ married to Mary Magdalene and the father of children. The De Vinci code was history mixed with fiction that made fiction appear like real history. This book is a fictional tale and its religious principles are not to be taken seriously.

The Da Vinci code will not be the last attempt to discredit Christianity. Every one of these can be perceived either as a threat or as an opportunity. I would not want to be the one that is trying to discredit God. Consider Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” But these threats are also opportunities. As believers, we must pray to God to provide us with the ability to intelligently and compassionately interact on issues that are often contentious and emotionally charged. We must also pray for the people we are talking with to have open minds and that God would give us the knowledge to counteract the efforts to discredit God or Christianity.

In the next two posts I will try to give you some of that knowledge. But there is so much more that can be learned. I encourage you to learn as much as you can to be prepared to defend your faith.

How do we know that Jesus actually rose from the dead?

People usually start with the resurrection, because for all practical purposes, Christianity rests on that single, history-changing event. The apostle Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 15:14: “ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” And in verse 17 he adds, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” No resurrection, no Christianity.

Skeptics and scholars have attempted to dismiss the resurrection as a myth designed to make a man bigger than life. Because if you can prove the historical Jesus is just another man, no matter how good, everything in the Bible would quickly unravel.

If you remember from the Revolution series,the book of Acts reveals that the central message of the apostles was the resurrection of Jesus Christ, an event of which they were eye-witnesses. Just a few examples are: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.” – Acts 2:32.

You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” Acts 3:15

“The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” – Acts 5:30-32

It is well known fact that people love conspiracies. Was there another shooter on the grassy knoll. Were there aliens in Roswell? There were conspiracy theories long before those examples, including the resurrection. Those conspiracy theories continue to this day. One of the more popular ones is that the apostles stole the body to further their agenda. What makes that unlikely is that the apostles themselves faced extreme executions that could have easily been avoided if they had simply produced the stolen body. It is psychologically unlikely that an entire group of men would stand up to torture and death for the sake of a group fabricated hoax. Others believed the religious leaders of the day stole the body. Those religious groups, namely the Pharisees, who wanted to see Christianity stamped out and would have stopped at nothing to find and produce the body. The young faith could have been easily strangled from the beginning if anyone had been able to produce it. Nobody did.

Scripture makes it clear that the resurrection was a physical and entirely historic event. The apostles take great pains to explain that they were witnesses of the risen Christ, and history provides us with an indisputable fact that no sources, Christian or otherwise, ever disputed: the tomb into which Jesus’ body was laid on Good Friday was empty on Easter morning.

What about all the other claims Jesus made?

In line with the resurrection, was the question of whether Jesus backed up the claims He made. Did they really happen. So let’s look at this for a few moments. One claim that jesus clearly made that He was the son of God. John 3:17 says “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Jesus backed up his claims by doing things no regular human being could do. It is historically recorded by eyewitnesses that Jesus changed the weather with his spoken word, walked on water, changed water into wine, instantly healed the blind, the deaf and paralyzed, the leper, cast out demons, created fish and bread to feed thousands, restored a severed ear, cursed a fig tree that produced no fruit, brought the dead back to life and as we just talked about in the previous paragraph rose from the dead himself, after which he appeared before 500 people.

In those times, only men were counted in crowd size estimates, so factoring in women and children, Jesus would have appeared to probably 1,500 to 2,000 people according to actual recorded historical accounts by eyewitnesses. There is no way that many people could have been duped. Those things happened. And that is what separates Jesus from other religious leaders. They have the ability to convince others to follow them. But they cannot defy the laws of physics. They cannot control sickness, disease, the weather, the Laws of Physics and even death itself.

if they were in a storm, they couldn’t change the weather. If they came across blind, deaf or paralyzed people, those people stayed blind, deaf and paralyzed. If they attended a wedding where the wine ran out, water would have to do. If they had only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed 5000, 4990 would have to go hungry. When they came across dead people, those people stayed dead and when they died themselves, they stayed dead.

Only the true son of God, Jesus Christ could do and did those thi