{So who is this Jesus ...?}

In briefly attempting to explain who Jesus is and why finding out about His claims is important, I'll use some of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite authors.

"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." [C. S. Lewis] Jesus made some very bold claims, which in His day would have been utterly outrageous. There is no other explanation other than what He said about Himself was true and He is God, or what He said about Himself was false and He was a lunatic and extremely evil. Therefore, knowing what He said and coming to the place of belief in Him, or not, is of utmost importance.

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." [C. S. Lewis] The decision about God (an afterlife) is there whether we like it or not, choosing to ignore the fact will not cause the choice to disappear or be any less important. Therefore, at the very least we owe it to ourselves to understand more about the decision we will all have to face, and be accountable for, at some point in our existence.

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." [C. S. Lewis] Belittling the decision is not an option. We should not patronise the commitment to following Jesus, as someday I believe that all people will have to stand before Jesus and answer to why they made the choice they did. In my opinion you can either be for Him or against Him; but we will all, one day, be made accountable for the decisions we make now. We could die having made the decision and find out it was meaningless, but still have lived a good life; or we could die not making the decision, living a good life and find out it was significant, standing face to face with the living God. At the very least I'd like to try and make the most rational, complete, knowledgeable decision I can about Jesus Christ with all the facts in place, and be totally sure that I have explored all possibilities and know that I've not left the decision to chance.

[Matt Hall 2006]