After some of the crowd heard Jesus say these words, they said, “This man is certainly the prophet.” Other people said, “This man is the Messiah.”
John 7:40–41
A lot of people say Jesus was a prophet or a good man but was not God. They’ll listen to what he has to say and take some truth out of it, but they won’t go so far as to believe that he was who he said he was. See, it’s easy to believe only the human parts about Jesus, like recognizing his wisdom and his common sense, but it’s another thing completely to believe that he is God, who became flesh and walked among us.
We as believers need to be convinced of who Jesus is. If we only give him credit for being a good guy, we miss out on his very nature and we reject God himself. As you read about his life, you have to decide if Jesus was a wise man with crazy tendencies or truly the Son of God. It’s hard to call him just a prophet or a wise teacher when he also called himself God. But consider that each way he described himself points to his divinity: “the bread of life” (John 6:35, 48), “the light of the world” (John 8:12), “the gate” (John 10:7), “the good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14), “life itself” (John 11:25), “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and “the vine” (John 15:1, 5). Yep, Jesus called himself God seven different ways. Saying stuff like this about himself made the people who didn’t believe him angry enough to send him to the cross. As a God Girl, you need to know this God you serve and love.