“‘But what about you?’ He asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’” Matthew 16:15-16
Have you ever played the game telephone? It’s always fun seeing how the sentences gets mixed up by the end of the line. Sometimes they get close to the initial phrase, other times it is nowhere near the beginning and you can’t even imagine where it took a hard turn. Some people change words on purpose to see where the one mistake will lead. Others say things so low that the next person can’t hear them and has to make up parts of the sentence. But isn’t that the reality about what we hear in our lives? When we lean into what the world says, how many perspectives do you hear? What does the world say about how to live? Who we are as individuals? The circumstances around us? Who our God is? Most of all, how can you tell the truth?
In Matthew 15, Jesus asks His disciples what people call Him, and in return, they named John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another prophet. They respond with the common view, as many people saw Jesus, or what they had heard. Notice how none of the people’s responses claim Jesus as Lord or Messiah. And the answers varied on who Jesus might be. But when asked directly, Simon responds with the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Rather than agreeing and siding with what other people had to say about Jesus, Peter confessed Jesus to be the promised and long-awaited Messiah. In a similar way, we too, must own our faith, besides what others may say or believe for themselves, but confess Jesus as Lord and Messiah.
If Jesus asked you this question today, what would your answer be? What is influencing your answer? Are you allowing the world to shape the culture of your faith? Or are you spending time in the Word, in prayer and meditation, and getting to know Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God?
