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Committing our lives to Jesus Christ is having a relationship with Him. But this relationship has to be developed and this involves getting to know Him better. Jesus wants us to know Him and that was why He asked His Apostles a question connected to His identity in Matthew chapter 16. In verse 13, He asked them; "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?"When Jesus asked the above question, His Apostles gave different answers in response. Continuing from verse 14 of Matthew chapter 16 it says; "And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist; some; Elias; and others; Jeremias or one of the prophets". But He said to them; "But whom say ye that I am?" Then Peter spoke up and said; "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."Apostle Paul was keen on knowing Jesus as the Son of God. The evidence is recorded in his writings in Philippians chapter 3: 10 where he said; "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death". This is very deep.For us today, the best way for us to get to know about Jesus is to read the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit so that we can have revelations of Him as it appears on every chapter and pages of this wonderful book. Only then can we be able to see His claims concerning Himself and the writings of others in the Gospels.Even though there are revelations of Jesus in the Old Testament of the Bible, the first four books in the New Testament are the Gospels or the "good news" of Jesus Christ. They were written in the first century A.D. and were based upon eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.Following history records, Jesus was born about 4 or 5 B.C. (Our calendars today are a little off.) The nation of Israel was under Roman government occupation and the Jews fought to maintain national identity. Every faithful Jew had the hope that one day a Messiah would appear and provide salvation for the nation by overthrowing the Roman rule. The word "Messiah" is a Hebrew, meaning "the anointed one."Majority of the Gospel accounts is devoted to the three years that Jesus spent ministering around the Sea of Galilee. They tell us of the life and teachings of this unique person called Jesus. Hence the Gospels explains, demonstrated His divine powers which He showed by healing the sick, the blind and the lame; raising the dead; walking on water and calming a storm at sea.Because His teachings lacked, the exacting legalism and piousness that characterized so much of the contemporary Judaism, He became tremendously popular among the masses in Galilee. Throughout His ministry, He kept pointing the people to Himself. Although the masses wanted a political liberator and the religious establishment wanted their positions of power and piety recognized, Jesus pandered to neither group.In the Gospel of John, chapter 5, Jesus was accosted by Jewish religious leaders for healing an invalid on the Sabbath which is the Jewish ("Day of Rest"). They widely considered any expenditure of effort on that day a violation of God's command to maintain it as a day of rest. Over the centuries they had meticulously codified what was permissible, and Jesus' action flaunted their strict rules.Jesus defended His action of healing on the Sabbath by explaining that God, as the sustainer of the universe, never rests but continually keeps working. And God is always doing good in human history. He explained that God cannot stop His work and said; "My Father is constantly working, and I follow His example." For this, the Jewish leaders were all the more eager to kill Him because in addition to disobeying the laws of Sabbath, He had spoke of God as His Father, thereby making Himself, equal with God. See (John 5:17, 18).
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