recognizing God

In Matthew 16:13-19, Jesus asks his disciples if they know who he is. Peter is the first to respond: "You are the Messiah, son of the Living God." I like that there doesn't seem to be any hesitation in Peter's answer. I imagine he said it very matter-0f-factly. "Is this a trick question, Jesus?" he might've asked. "You're the Messiah. We all know that."

Jesus is pleased with Peter's answer and goes on to tell him that it was the Holy Spirit that revealed this to him. This is one of the few passages in which we see the Trinity working as a whole. Jesus is declared to be the Son of God and it was the Holy Spirit's work that revealed this to the disciples.

The work of the Holy Spirit has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I'm not sure why, but I keep coming back again and again to the idea that it is the Holy Spirit that changes people's hearts, not you or I. Changing people is not up to us. We cannot create change. We can be conduits of change, we can create the environment for change, but we cannot bring that change about in someone. That fact really strips away our need/desire to 'fix' people, doesn't it? It prevents us from saying things like, "If I love him/her hard enough, they'll come around" or "If I forgive him/her often enough, they'll understand and change their behaviour." It doesn't work like that. It is not our job to change people.

Just as it was the work of the Holy Spirit that revealed Jesus' true identity to Peter, it is the work of the Holy Spirit that continues to reveal Jesus' true identity to people today.

Let's get out of God's way and let people see him instead of us!