Who do you say Jesus is?

“Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, ” Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant.” Matthew 21:14-15

When our daughter was little, barely 15-16 months, my wife was away for a night. The following evening, we went to the airport to pick her. Our daughter was being cuddled by her mom in the passenger seat behind, and in the dark she started to stare quizzically at my wife. The next thing she did brought chuckles to everyone in the car – she started to smell her mother all over her face and neck. When she has completed her exercise of “verification”, then she was much happier.

All of us perceive the world and circumstance around us through our 5 senses. However, we rely on the information received from our strongest sense to be the primary source for interpreting what we perceive. That perception is then passed through a filter created by the data we have collected, consciously or subconsciously.

During the days of Jesus, the blind and the lame were not permitted in the temple, even blind or lame priests. They were considered the accursed of God by the traditions of the Pharisees and their extended interpretation of the laws. It must have taken great courage and faith for these blind and lame to come to Jesus in the temple. So, when Jesus healed them, the same act of miraculous healing was perceived and interpreted very differently – the children recognized those were signs that point to Jesus as the Messiah, but the religious authorities saw it as a threat to the institution that they have helped created.

We need to consciously and deliberately input the Truth and Word of God into our lives, if we want to see Jesus as who He really is. What we take in, what kind of “data” we allow into our heart through our 5 senses will determine whether we would perceive and respond as did the children or the chief priest and the scribes. Train and discipline ourselves (and our children) to take in the Word of God, to drink from His fountain. In the midst of a world filled with a torrent of information coming through the internet, social media and the entertainment world, we cannot afford to leave our relationship with the Lord to chance.