Is Jesus Relevant Today?

Even if you're not a church-going type of person, I am sure at some point in your life you have heard people (even friends and neighbors) talk about how Jesus came into their life and saved them? What does this mean? Is the person and work of Jesus Christ relevant in a postmodern world? I hope that by reading this article you will come to the conclusion that the answer is a resounding "yes".

Consider this list of issues going on in the US and around the world:

· war and global terrorism

· health care problems

· famine and disease

· new diseases

· education

· illiteracy

· economic hardship

· crime

· mental illness

· changing gender roles

· religious upheavals

· governmental involvement

· elections and politics

· ethnic strife

· race relations

· racial and gender equality

· artistic endeavors

· scientific exploration

· AIDS

· Global poverty

· Global warming and climate change

· Road rage and car accidents

· Rapidly changing trends in weather

Then now consider the following quotations from Scripture.

^· In the beginningwas the Word, and the Word was with God,and the Word was fully God.The Wordwas with God in the beginning. All things were createdby him, and apart from him not one thing was createdthat has been created.In him was life,and the life was the light of mankind.And the light shines onthe darkness, butthe darkness has not mastered it. (John 1:1-5)

• "...For judgment I am come into this world, that they that see not might see; and they which see might be made blind." (John 9:39)
• "I am come that they may have life; and they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)
• "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believes on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world but to save the world..." (John 12:46-47)
• "I came forth from the father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world and go to the Father." (John 16:28)

· Jesus told his disciples to "...go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." (Matthew 10:6) After that Jesus said "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." Then He healed the daughter of a Gentile woman. (Matthew 15:24)

· "For the Son of Man is come to save that which is lost." (Matthew 18:11)

Mainstream America has marginalized the concept of human savior sent from God, fully God and fully man, into something that we can take or leave. We have our money, and our homes, and our careers and our families. Don't also forget the flip side to that coin: we also have our homeless, our poor, our broken, and our downtrodden (Jesus called them "the least of these")

So is Jesus relevant? Do we *need* a Savior in this modern, affluent age? I believe so and here's why. To qualify for a Savior, the human soul needs something to be saved *from*. This is where Jesus comes in, He is not some archaic figure that we can take or leave as some great figure of history, only as a great moral teacher. He is the centerpiece of God's eternal plan. As the Bible says, he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and the author/finisher of God's new covenant of love for all of his people.

So as you go through your day today, perhaps chew on this and think about it for a while? If this world is in so much turmoil, where is your place in? What is the condition of your heart? Do you know? Would you like to know? Most people, when faced with this question, would say probably say yes.

Don't take my word for it. Go and find Him for yourself. You will be glad you did.

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"We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument...Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege." -CS Lewis: Letters to Malcolm

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 be either 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. -CS Lewis: Mere Christianity