…except that a few good friends of mine this week committed themselves, on their knees, to follow him?

More than 2000 years on, Jesus is still the Son of God – still changing lives!

But would Jesus agree that he really was all that – and more? Would be be rolling in his grave to think that a religion based on him even existed? Wasn’t he just a teacher? A good man? Could he actually be God?

Well what kind of God would you want God to be, to be called God? Theologians talk about various ATTRIBUTES of God, for God to really be called God, he’d have to fit the bill.

God would have to be immutable (unchanging). The Bible says, Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

You would think God – to be worthy of the epithet – would be eternal: he’d have no beginning and no end. Read the beginning of John’s gospel – Jesus fits that bill!

Surely you’d want him omniscient – all knowing? Jesus certainly ‘grew in wisdom and stature,’ but he met with people like Zacchaeus and the woman at the well in John 4 knew all about them, the good, the bad and the ugly. He knew the past of people with a past to be ashamed of, but he didn’t let that put him off. He gave wisdom and teaching that cannot be surpassed. He knew what other people were thinking. He knew and predicted that he’d go to Jerusalem and be rejected, condemned, tortured, die on a cross –and rise again on the third day. He knew the future of the Jewish people and described it. Those closest to him said, “You know all things…” I suppose that can be a great comfort or a great problem for you, depending, for instance, on your internet history. Nobody else knows… but Jesus knows.

We’d expect God to be omnipresent. Jesus said, “I am with you always. To the very end of the age.” He said, “Wherever two or three gather in my name, I’m there with them.” Where you are now, Jesus wants you to know he’ll be with you – a prayer away.

We’d want God to be omnipotent: Jesus walked on water, healed every kind of disease, set people free from dark spiritual powers that bound them. He said, “all authority on heaven and earth have been given to me.” Lord Acton said, ‘power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ but those who knew him best knew Jesus was HUMBLY omnipotent. Jesus can do anything!

Jesus really was a carpenter’s son, who grew up in a dusty village. He experienced the full range of human emotions, sweated, ate and got tired – he led no army, He was fully man, but from the very first he was worshipped as being fully God too! God – in a bod!

Colossians 2;9 For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form

From his birth – he shared and received the glory and honour due to God and never tried to stop anyone who gave that to him. Throughout his life he expected not just to be respected as a rabbi, a prophet, a holy man, but to be worshipped and adored by all people and even the angels as the Lord, the only God. For all eternity He said that all should honour him, the Son, as they honoured the Father! (John 5:23) That would be an OUTRAGEOUS claim for a human being!

He said that he always did what God the Father wanted him to do (Talk about perfection?)! He said our eternal destinies hang on how we respond to him – because he has the power of life and death.

He said, ‘I am the door, I am the bread of life, I am the resurrection…

I wonder – do you know how special He is?