Mark 8:27-30

Rachel Nixon

As I write this there are but a few minutes to go until this year's Oscar nominations are revealed. I enjoy a good movie and so I'm quite eager to find out what the nominations are.. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music (Original Score) and Best Make-Up to name 4 of the 20 or so awards. As I wait I got to thinking, which award would I be most proud to receive and also which award in real-life would most represent me.

Are you best supporting role? Or leading role? Or is make-up or music above all your most important aspect? Are you best at adapting a story or do you tell it like it is? Is your life motivated by action/adventure or romance?

I think I'm more a supporting role rather than a leading position but I'd be interested to know what award others would nominate me for!... I'd like to think make-up for example is not the sum total of who I am! Joking aside it's very easy to focus too much on what other people think of us, and whilst I was pondering on the awards I got to thinking on how we see God and how he sees us.

No matter how we're feeling or how others understand us, above all God's love for us never changes. It sounds obvious but how do we live that in our lives? Who shapes our opinions of us? Is it honestly God or is it the people we work with, go to school with? Our family or friends?

And it's easier sometimes to focus on what others think over what God thinks. But God knows our faults and helps us to change, if only we let him. In Mark 8:27-30 we read Jesus asking his disciples "Who do people say I am?" and the disciples reply "some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." It's Peter who confesses his true character, that he is the Christ. Jesus is, in this instance concerned with who his closest companions say he is. He knows his divine character but he wants to hear what they say about him. I think that question is relevant to us everyday, whether we've been a Christian 100 years or 10 minutes. It's easy to say the 'right' answer but in practice how we actually see God in our day to day lives can be different. Do we greet the day secure in the knowledge he is out saviour? Or is Jesus more like a long lost friend we've not talked to for a while? Is he only a shelter in troubled times or is he our source of all in good and bad? It's easy to see bits of God's character dependant on how we're feeling at that moment, but if God never changes, throughout all in spite of how we're feeling he is Saviour, Friend, Father and King.

So.
Be authentic to who God would have you be, be that best supporting role, best leading actor or best make-up artist, or whatever our gifts. Focus on God's opinion of us rather than others, and be secure in that. Live in the Bible and it'll soon seep in. And try asking yourself the question everyday. Who was Jesus to me today? Bring everything to God and rest in his love.