Tommy Mann

Is Jesus really God? I often hear people say that Jesus never actually claimed to be God, and that Christians are mistaken to say that He is. But that is not true; Jesus often equated Himself with God, saying things like, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)," and "I and the Father are one (John 10:30)."  But even beyond those claims He made are the things He did. Yes, Jesus performed miracles, healed the sick, and cast out demons, but He also did something quite noteworthy: He forgave sin. In Mark 2 Jesus healed a paralytic and then told him his sins were forgiven. Those words enraged the Pharisees, who angrily said, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? (v.7)” That may seem like a poor litmus test, because how can any of us know whether or not the paralytic's sins were truly forgiven? Just because Jesus declared them to be doesn't prove that they were. How can we verify that statement? We...

Most people are familiar with the first public miracle of Jesus, at a wedding reception, where He turned water into wine. This act averted a disaster, as running out of wine was a societal faux pas that the family would never live down. So Jesus intervened.  John 2:7-8 tells us: Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” When the master of the feast (something akin to our wedding planners) tasted the wine, he was amazed at how good it tasted. As any wine aficionado knows, the best wine is aged wine, but this wine was only water two seconds ago. Jesus didn't just make wine out of water, He made it as if it had been around for years.  This miracle was so much more than just some sleight of hand trick; Jesus genuinely made something incredible out of something ordinary. It also shows us that God's relationship to time is different than ours. When He c...

The great writer and humorist Mark Twain once quipped, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why." Of course by finding out why he meant finding out what we were born to do--why God put us on this planet.  I agree with Twain, so long as we agree that the "why" is found in Christ. Specifically, we were born to be in a relationship with the God who made us. The problem is, because we are sinners by nature, we are disconnected from the God we are supposed to be in a relationship with. A holy God cannot associate with sinful people. That is where Jesus comes in. He satisfied the law's demands, paying the penalty our sin deserved. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross allowed the Father to punish sin while allowing the sinner to go free. God can be just and the justifier. God can deal severely with sin while allowing the sinner to go free. God can be full of fury and full of mercy. God can hate sin and love the si...