The Perfect Time to Focus on Jesus
I want to tell you a true story that speaks to how someone who was at one time close to Jesus felt about Him after straying far away.
Charles Templeton was born in 1915 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. While working as a cartoonist for The Toronto Globe (later The Globe and Mail), he became a Christian, quitting his job in 1936 to preach. Soon he was an evangelist, preaching in nearly every U.S. state, attending Princeton Theological Seminary, and hosting a religious television show. Templeton became close friends with evangelist Billy Graham and co-founded Youth for Christ International.
But struggling with doubts about Christianity in general and his faith in particular, Templeton announced to a stunned world that he was renouncing his religion and becoming an agnostic. Later he embraced atheism. In 1996, he published a memoir titled Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.
At age 80, still fully immersed in atheism, Templeton was asked in an interview how he assessed Jesus. Templeton responded, “He was the greatest human being who has ever lived” and “the most important thing in my life.” He added, “Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus” and “In my view, he is the most important human being who has ever existed.” With a cracked voice, he added, “I...miss...him.”
Powerful stuff, right? A highly intelligent and gifted man, seemingly called by God to ministry, so convinced of the truth of Christianity that he made proclaiming the gospel his occupation, throwing away his faith... And yet, tearfully acknowledging that he missed the One he had once called his Lord and Savior.
Once you’ve genuinely had an encounter with Jesus, it’s impossible to see Him in any other light than as the most admirable, remarkable, loving, caring, forgiving, wonderful, peerless Being you’ve ever known.
Here are a few verses from the New Testament in which Jesus spoke about Himself:
In John 8:58, Jesus told religious leaders, “‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’” (NIV)
John 14:6: “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (HCSB)
John 11:25: “Jesus said to (Martha), ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.’” (HCSB)
John 6:35: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’” (NIV)
John 8:12: “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” (NIV)
John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (NIV)
John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (HCSB)
If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to invite Jesus into your heart. There’s no one better to reside there than the I Am, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Resurrection and the Life, the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Vine, and the Good Shepherd.
As we celebrate Jesus’s earthly birth this week, let’s remember that He is all of that... and so much more.