Pilate's question

"Pilate said to them, 'What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?' They all said to him, 'Let Him be crucified.'" (Matthew 27:22)

   I assume that like me you have heard a sermon or two about Governor Pilate's question to the Jewish Priests and elders, who desired to kill our Savior and Lord. It is really the central question of life which all men and women have to answer during their lifetime. For many of us we have heard about Jesus all our lives in church and Sunday School. Some of us are just recently finding out about Jesus, but the real question is not what we have heard or been taught; the question is what are we doing with Him personally?

    Ravi Zacharerias in his book "Jesus Among Other Gods" gives this quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Emperor responsible for the deaths of thousands of French, English, Austrian, Italian, Prussian, and Russian soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s in Europe. He was speaking to Count Montholon, while Napoleon was in exile on the island of Saint Helena.

    "Can you tell who Jesus Christ was? (The count declined to respond, so Napoleon countered;) Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him....I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these men, and I am a man, none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than a man....I have inspired multitudes with such enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me...but to do this it was necessary that I be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts....Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it has become insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all it's powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience the remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man's creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust it's strength nor put a limit to it's range. This is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ." (Quoted from the Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharerias, p149 and footnoted to Henry Liddon, Liddon's Bampton Lectures 1866.)

    Napoleon understood something that many of us don't really grasp today. Jesus Christ has demonstrated that He is totally God and totally man. Only the fact that He is who He claimed to be, the Son of the Living God, can He have the followers that He commands today all over this planet called earth. Have you completely surrendered to the Lordship of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords or are you just sailing through life looking for what Jesus can do for you? He demands our unconditional love and obedience and it is our "reasonable service."

  "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:1-2)


Pray:
1. Lord I give you my life completely to be obedient to your teaching and commands today and for the coming days ahead.
2. Lord Jesus I love You. You are my Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, and I thank you for saving me and adopting me as your son or daughter.
3. Lord help me today to be faithful to spend time in Your Scriptures so that you can teach me the way I should go and to guide my every thought and action.