He said to them “But who do you say that I am?” – Matthew 16:15

Scripture Reading: Matthew 16:13-20

Christ’s question is one of the most important if not the most important question that a person will ever answer. Many answers were offered in the days of His public ministry and still today. But there is only one correct answer. One!

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of the various understandings concerning the person of Christ:

“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 either be a lunatic – on the level with a human 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 patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

And how do you answer the question: Who do you say Jesus is?

Suggestions for prayer

Pray for strengthening grace to remain firm in that faith that trusts Christ as the Son of the living God. Pray for others to come to the same conviction.

This daily devotional is available in a print edition you can buy at Nearer to God Devotional.