You Have Encountered Jesus. Now What?
Please click the PLAY button below to listen to audio
When Encounter Becomes Mission — Living In and For Christ
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” — Matthew 16:18
Something has happened at Caesarea Philippi that cannot be undone.
Peter has looked at Jesus and declared:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus has looked at Simon and declared:
“You are Peter.”
Peter has discovered something about Jesus.
And in encountering Jesus, Peter has begun discovering something about himself.
But Jesus does not stop there.
He continues:
“And on this rock I will build my Church.”
There it is.
Mission.
Peter’s encounter with Jesus does not end with Peter.
And neither should ours.
There Is a Danger in Stopping at Encounter
We speak often—and rightly—about having a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.
We pray for it.
We organize retreats around it.
We sing about it.
We preach about it.
We invite people into it.
But there is a danger.
We can begin to think that the encounter itself is the destination.
I met Jesus.
I experienced His love.
I felt His presence.
I received His mercy.
I experienced healing.
I discovered who I am in Him.
Wonderful.
But now what?
Because nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus encounter someone simply so that they can spend the rest of their lives reminiscing about the encounter.
Encounter is not the end of the Christian journey.
It is the beginning.
Look at What Happens When People Meet Jesus
There is a pattern running throughout the Gospels.
People meet Jesus.
And then something changes.
The Samaritan woman comes to the well for water.
She encounters Jesus.
And by the end of that conversation, she leaves behind the very water jar she came to fill and runs into the town:
“Come and see a man who told me everything I have done.”
The woman who came to the well alone becomes an evangelist.
Encounter becomes mission.
Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb grieving.
She encounters the risen Jesus.
He calls her by name:
“Mary.”
And shortly afterwards she is running to announce:
“I have seen the Lord.”
Encounter becomes mission.
Zacchaeus encounters Jesus.
His relationship with money changes.
Encounter becomes conversion.
Matthew encounters Jesus at the tax collector’s table.
Jesus says:
“Follow me.”
Matthew gets up.
Encounter becomes discipleship.
Saul encounters the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.
The persecutor becomes an apostle.
Encounter becomes mission.
And Peter—
the fisherman,
the impulsive disciple,
the man who sank beneath the waves,
the man who would later deny Jesus—
stands at Caesarea Philippi and declares:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus responds:
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”
Encounter.
Identity.
Mission.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Christianity Was Never Meant to End With Me
This may be one of the most uncomfortable truths about Christianity.
The grace God gives me is not intended to terminate in me.
The mercy I receive is supposed to make me merciful.
The forgiveness I receive is supposed to teach me to forgive.
The love I receive is supposed to make me capable of loving.
The hope Christ gives me is supposed to make me a bearer of hope.
The Gospel entrusted to me is supposed to travel through me to somebody else.
Christianity is not:
Jesus → me → stop.
It is:
Jesus → me → someone else.
And then:
someone else → someone else → someone else.
That is how twelve ordinary men standing around Jesus became a Church stretching across continents and centuries.
Someone told someone.
Someone witnessed to someone.
Someone baptized someone.
Someone taught someone.
Someone suffered for someone.
Someone handed on what they themselves had received.
And eventually, across two thousand years of human history—
the Gospel reached you.
Someone Brought Jesus to You
Think about that for a moment.
However you came to know Jesus, somebody probably stood somewhere in the chain.
Perhaps it was your mother.
Your father.
Your grandmother.
Your grandfather.
A teacher.
A catechist.
A priest.
A religious sister.
A friend.
A spouse.
A stranger.
Perhaps somebody brought you to Baptism before you were old enough even to understand what was happening.
Perhaps somebody taught you to make the Sign of the Cross.
Somebody taught you the Our Father.
Somebody first told you that the little white Host held before you at Mass is not merely bread—
it is Jesus Christ.
Somebody planted something.
Perhaps they never lived long enough to see what grew.
But they planted.
And now comes a sobering question:
Who will know Jesus because you knew Him?
“But I’m Not an Evangelist”
Perhaps immediately we become uncomfortable.
Because when Catholics hear words such as mission and evangelization, many imagine someone standing on a street corner with a Bible.
Or a missionary travelling to another country.
Or a priest preaching.
Or somebody with extraordinary theological knowledge answering difficult questions.
And we think:
That’s not me.
But mission begins much closer to home.
Your first mission territory may be your house.
Your marriage.
Your children.
Your workplace.
Your friendships.
Your WhatsApp conversations.
Your parish.
Your neighbourhood.
Your conduct in traffic.
Your business practices.
Your response when somebody insults you.
Your behaviour when nobody is watching.
The question is not merely:
“Do I talk about Jesus?”
It is:
“Can people encounter something of Jesus through the way I live?”
Before We Speak About Christ, We Must Live In Christ
This distinction is critical.
Christian mission is not primarily a marketing campaign for Christianity.
We are not selling Jesus.
We are not promoting a religious brand.
We are not trying to win an argument.
We are witnesses.
And a witness can only testify to something he or she has encountered.
This is why Part 2 mattered.
“But you, who do you say that I am?”
Before Peter can proclaim Christ, Peter must know Christ.
Before we can convincingly tell the world who Jesus is, Jesus must become more than information in our minds.
He must become the centre of our lives.
Jesus says in John 15:
“Remain in me, as I remain in you.”
That changes the whole idea of mission.
Mission does not begin with frantic activity.
It begins with abiding.
Remaining.
Prayer.
The Word.
The Eucharist.
Listening.
Surrender.
Relationship.
We cannot continually give a Christ whom we ourselves are no longer encountering.
The Branch Cannot Produce Fruit by Trying Harder
Jesus gives us an extraordinary image:
The vine and the branches.
A branch does not produce grapes by gritting its teeth.
It bears fruit because it remains connected to the vine.
That is Christian mission.
We sometimes exhaust ourselves trying to do things for Jesus while neglecting to remain in Jesus.
And eventually we become tired.
Frustrated.
Resentful.
Burnt out.
Perhaps even angry that nobody appreciates what we are doing.
But Christian mission does not begin with:
“What can I accomplish for God?”
It begins with:
“Lord, keep me close to You.”
Because if I remain in Christ, something begins to happen.
His heart begins shaping mine.
His priorities begin challenging mine.
His compassion begins disturbing my indifference.
His truth begins confronting my compromises.
His mercy begins softening my judgments.
His love begins stretching the boundaries of whom I am willing to love.
Then mission stops being merely something I do.
It begins becoming something I am.
Living In Christ Must Become Living For Christ
There are two movements here.
Living in Christ.
And:
Living for Christ.
We cannot separate them.
If we attempt to live for Christ without living in Christ, Christianity becomes exhausting activism.
But if we claim to live in Christ without ever living for Christ, spirituality becomes self-absorption.
The Christian life needs both.
Communion and mission.
Prayer and action.
Adoration and service.
Eucharist and witness.
We come to Christ.
Then Christ sends us.
And then we return to Christ because we cannot continue without Him.
It becomes a rhythm:
Encounter.
Remain.
Receive.
Go.
Serve.
Return.
Again.
And again.
And again.
“Go in Peace” Is Not Just a Polite Way to End Mass
For Catholics, there is something extraordinarily beautiful here.
Every celebration of the Eucharist ends with a sending.
We sometimes hear the dismissal and think:
Mass is finished.
But the very word Mass points toward being sent.
We have heard the Word.
We have prayed.
We have encountered Christ.
And most astonishingly—
we have received Him.
Then the Church sends us out.
The dismissal is not simply:
“Okay, everyone. You may go home now.”
It is mission.
You have received Christ.
Now carry Christ into the world.
You have heard the Gospel.
Now live the Gospel.
You have received mercy.
Now become merciful.
You have received peace.
Now become a peacemaker.
You have received the Body of Christ.
Now go and be the Body of Christ in the world.
Imagine what would happen if every Catholic approached the dismissal at Mass that way.
What Happens on Monday?
Perhaps this is where Christianity becomes painfully practical.
Sunday is relatively easy.
We know what Catholicism looks like inside a church.
Stand.
Sit.
Kneel.
Respond.
Sing.
Pray.
Receive.
But what does Catholicism look like on Monday morning?
What happens when your co-worker irritates you?
What happens when someone offers you an opportunity to make money dishonestly?
What happens when everybody at work is gossiping?
What happens when somebody needs forgiveness?
What happens when your spouse disappoints you?
What happens when your child tests your patience?
What happens when somebody on social media has a political opinion you despise?
What happens when you encounter someone poor?
Someone lonely?
Someone difficult?
Someone who cannot repay you?
Someone from a different race, class, religion, nationality or social background?
Someone society has discarded?
Who is Jesus on Monday?
Because if Jesus is Lord only during Mass, He is not yet Lord of our lives.
Trinidad and Tobago Needs Christians Who Look Like Christ
And this becomes particularly important here at home.
Trinidad and Tobago does not simply need more people who identify themselves as Christian.
We have plenty of Christian identification.
Churches.
Schools.
Crosses.
Religious programmes.
Christian language.
Scripture verses.
Religious festivals.
What our country desperately needs are people whose encounter with Jesus has changed the way they live.
In a society wounded by violence, Christians must become peacemakers.
Where corruption is normalized, Christians must become people of integrity.
Where dishonesty is dismissed as “everybody does it,” Christians must be different.
Where families are fractured, Christians must become agents of reconciliation.
Where young people feel hopeless, Christians must carry hope.
Where the elderly are forgotten, Christians must remember them.
Where people are lonely, Christians must notice them.
Where racial suspicion survives beneath the surface, Christians must refuse to participate in it.
Where political differences become hatred, Christians must demonstrate another way.
Where vulgarity becomes normal, Christians must preserve human dignity.
Where revenge is celebrated, Christians must witness to forgiveness.
Where human life is treated cheaply, Christians must proclaim its sacredness.
Where despair whispers:
“Nothing will ever change,”
Christians must answer with lives that say:
“Christ is risen.”
Not merely with our mouths.
With our lives.
The World Has Heard Christian Words
This may be one of the greatest challenges facing Christianity today.
The world has heard us speak.
It has heard sermons.
It has heard television preachers.
It has seen Scripture quotations.
It has heard debates.
It has watched Christians argue online.
Perhaps the question now is:
Has the world seen enough of Jesus in us to believe what we are saying about Him?
That question should trouble every Christian.
Because sometimes the greatest obstacle to evangelization is not atheism.
It is Christianity badly lived.
A person may never read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
But they may read you.
And for better or worse, they may form conclusions about Jesus from the Christians they encounter.
That is an enormous responsibility.
This Does Not Mean Pretending to Be Perfect
We must be careful here.
Witness does not mean pretending Christians never struggle.
That produces hypocrisy.
Peter struggled.
Peter failed spectacularly.
The saints struggled.
Christian mission is not:
“Look how perfect I am.”
It is:
“Look what Christ can do with someone like me.”
Sometimes one of the most powerful Christian witnesses is the humility to say:
“I was wrong.”
“Please forgive me.”
“I need help.”
“I am struggling.”
“God has been merciful to me.”
The world does not need Christians pretending they do not need a Saviour.
It needs Christians whose lives demonstrate why we do.
Mission Is Not Always Dramatic
We often look for dramatic ways to serve God.
But most Christian mission happens quietly.
A mother teaching her child to pray.
A father choosing patience when he is exhausted.
A teenager refusing to humiliate another student.
A business owner refusing a dishonest transaction.
A nurse treating an elderly patient with dignity.
A teacher noticing the child everyone else ignores.
A neighbour bringing food to someone who is grieving.
A young person sitting with somebody who feels alone.
A Catholic refusing to forward malicious gossip on WhatsApp.
Someone forgiving a wound that could have become generational hatred.
Someone praying beside a hospital bed.
Someone saying the name Jesus to a person who had almost given up hope.
These things may never go viral.
Heaven notices.
Your Mission Is Not Someone Else’s Mission
Part 3 asked:
Who told you who you are?
That question matters here too.
Because comparison can distort mission just as easily as it distorts identity.
Perhaps you look at somebody else’s ministry and think:
“I could never do that.”
Perhaps you cannot.
Maybe God never asked you to.
Peter was not Paul.
Paul was not John.
John was not Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene was not the Samaritan woman.
Yet each encountered Christ.
And each was sent.
The question is not:
“Why am I not doing what that person is doing?”
The question is:
“Jesus, what are You asking of me?”
Holiness Does Not Have Just One Face
Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we can make when speaking about mission is imagining that God wants to turn all of us into the same kind of person.
He does not.
Look at the saints.
They are astonishingly different.
Different personalities.
Different temperaments.
Different gifts.
Different centuries.
Different cultures.
Different struggles.
Different missions.
And yet something unites them.
They encountered Jesus Christ.
They allowed that encounter to tell them who they were.
And then they allowed Christ to do something with their lives.
The saints show us what happens when:
Encounter becomes identity.
Identity becomes surrender.
And surrender becomes mission.
St. Catherine of Siena — Become Who God Created You to Be
Catherine of Siena is particularly striking because she did not possess the things the world normally associates with influence.
She was not wealthy.
She was not a queen.
She did not hold political office.
She was not a priest.
She was a laywoman living in fourteenth-century Italy.
And yet this woman corresponded with popes, confronted political leaders, cared for the sick and poor, worked for peace, called people to conversion and became one of the great spiritual voices in the history of Christianity.
Eventually, the Church would name her a Doctor of the Church.
There is a saying widely associated with Catherine:
“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
Whether we use that familiar English formulation or a more historically precise translation of her thought, the spiritual insight is magnificent:
Become who God created you to be.
Notice what Catherine does not say.
Become famous.
Become powerful.
Become somebody else.
Become the person society expects you to become.
She points toward something much deeper:
Become the person God created you to be.
And that brings us directly back to Part 3:
Who told you who you are?
Because once we stop allowing the world to define us and begin allowing God to reveal who we are, something extraordinary becomes possible.
We become available for mission.
Perhaps the reason some of us never discover our mission is that we are exhausting ourselves trying to live someone else’s life.
Catherine did not become Francis.
Francis did not become Augustine.
Augustine did not become Carlo Acutis.
God did not need another one of them.
He needed Catherine to become Catherine.
And perhaps God does not need you to become anybody else either.
He needs you to become, through grace, the person He created you to be.
And perhaps that really could set some part of the world on fire.
St. Francis of Assisi — When Jesus Changes What You Value
Francis tells us something different.
As a young man, Francis dreamed of status, adventure and glory.
Then Christ began dismantling his idea of what a successful life looked like.
One of the defining encounters of Francis’s conversion came through someone he once would have avoided—a person suffering from leprosy.
Francis encountered the person he had feared and rejected.
And something changed.
The things he once found bitter began becoming sweet.
Eventually Francis relinquished wealth, status and security and embraced a life of radical poverty and dependence upon God.
But notice what happened.
Francis did not merely develop different opinions about poverty.
His encounter with Christ rearranged what he valued.
And that is mission too.
Sometimes mission begins when Jesus asks:
“Why are you spending your life pursuing something that cannot satisfy you?”
Money.
Status.
Recognition.
Power.
Comfort.
Approval.
Francis discovered a treasure greater than all of them.
Christ.
And once he did, his entire life became a proclamation.
Centuries later, the world still remembers the poor man of Assisi.
Why?
Not because Francis spent his life trying to become famous.
Quite the opposite.
He became free enough to belong completely to Christ.
St. Augustine — Your Past Does Not Disqualify Your Future
Then there is Augustine.
And perhaps Augustine speaks particularly powerfully to anyone who thinks:
“God could never use someone with my past.”
Augustine’s road to Christ was not tidy.
He searched.
He wandered.
He pursued pleasure.
He struggled with sexual sin.
He embraced ideas contrary to Christianity.
He resisted conversion.
His mother Monica prayed for him for years.
And then grace finally broke through.
Augustine encountered Christ.
And the man who had spent so much of his life searching everywhere else eventually recognized the One for whom his heart had always been searching.
His past did not disappear.
It became part of his testimony.
That is important.
God did not need Augustine to pretend he had never wandered.
God redeemed the wandering.
The sinner became a bishop.
The restless seeker became a theologian.
The man whose desires had once pulled him away from God became one of Christianity’s greatest teachers of grace.
That should give somebody hope.
Your past may explain something about you.
It does not have the authority to determine everything God can still do through you.
Perhaps the very wound you are ashamed of will one day become the place from which you recognize somebody else’s pain.
Perhaps the failure you wish you could erase will make you compassionate toward someone who has fallen.
Perhaps the mercy you received will become the mercy you give.
Augustine reminds us:
Grace does not merely forgive a past.
Sometimes God turns that redeemed past into mission.
St. Carlo Acutis — You Do Not Have to Leave the Modern World to Become Holy
Then come forward more than sixteen centuries.
A teenager.
Jeans.
Sneakers.
A computer.
The internet.
Carlo Acutis matters enormously for our generation precisely because his life dismantles another excuse:
“Holiness belonged to another time.”
Carlo lived in our technological world.
He used computers.
He enjoyed ordinary things.
And yet at the centre of his life was an extraordinary love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
Technology did not become his master.
It became a tool.
Carlo used his abilities—including his knowledge of computers—to help others encounter Christ and to document Eucharistic miracles.
Think about how important that is today.
The internet can spread pornography.
Hatred.
Gossip.
Deception.
Comparison.
Addiction.
Despair.
But the same technology can proclaim:
Jesus Christ is alive.
The question is not merely:
“Is technology good or bad?”
The Christian question is:
“Whose purposes will my gifts serve?”
Carlo did not have to become a medieval monk to become holy.
He had to become Carlo—belonging completely to Christ.
And that means a young person holding a smartphone today does not have to wait until adulthood to have a mission.
Your creativity can become mission.
Your music can become mission.
Your computer can become mission.
Your social media account can become mission.
Your education can become mission.
Your ordinary friendships can become mission.
Whatever God has placed in your hands can become an instrument of the Gospel when it is surrendered to Christ.
St. Óscar Romero — When Following Christ Costs Everything
And then there is Óscar Romero.
Archbishop of San Salvador.
His country was being torn apart by violence, injustice, repression and fear.
Romero could have remained quiet.
Silence would have been safer.
Instead, his preaching increasingly became a voice for those who had little power to defend themselves.
He denounced violence and injustice and pleaded for the dignity of the poor and oppressed.
And eventually his mission cost him everything.
On March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador, Óscar Romero was shot and killed.
The altar became the place of his martyrdom.
Think about the extraordinary symbolism.
A man who had spent his life offering:
“This is my body, given for you”
eventually gave his own life in fidelity to Christ and to the people entrusted to his care.
Romero reminds us of something we would rather forget:
Mission has a cost.
Following Jesus is not always safe.
Speaking truth can cost friendships.
Integrity can cost opportunities.
Forgiveness can cost pride.
Chastity can cost relationships.
Defending someone vulnerable can cost popularity.
Refusing corruption can cost money.
And for some Christians throughout history—and still today—following Christ has cost life itself.
Jesus never promised His disciples comfort.
He promised something greater:
Himself.
Five Saints. Five Completely Different Missions.
Look at them.
Catherine of Siena — a laywoman who spoke into the life of the Church and the affairs of nations.
Francis of Assisi — a man who surrendered wealth and discovered radical freedom in Christ.
Augustine — a restless sinner whose conversion transformed him into one of Christianity’s greatest teachers.
Carlo Acutis — a teenager who placed modern technology at the service of the Eucharistic Christ.
Óscar Romero — a bishop whose fidelity to the Gospel ultimately cost him his life.
They could hardly be more different.
And that is precisely the point.
There is no single personality type for holiness.
No single career.
No single age.
No single temperament.
No single social class.
No single historical period.
God does not mass-produce saints.
Grace does not erase personality. It sanctifies it.
And perhaps this is what Catherine’s famous challenge helps us understand:
Become who God created you to be.
Not the person social media tells you to be.
Not the person your wounds tell you to be.
Not the person somebody else’s expectations demand that you become.
Not a copy of your favourite saint.
Become the person Christ is calling you to become.
Because the world does not need another Catherine.
It does not need another Francis.
Another Augustine.
Another Carlo.
Another Romero.
God already gave those people to the world.
The person God has placed in this particular moment of history is you.
With your gifts.
Your history.
Your wounds.
Your personality.
Your opportunities.
Your limitations.
Your family.
Your profession.
Your circumstances.
Your particular corner of Trinidad and Tobago—or wherever in the world God has placed you.
And somewhere within all of that is your mission.
Mission Begins With the Person in Front of You
We sometimes dream about changing the world while ignoring the person sitting beside us.
Jesus continually notices individuals.
Bartimaeus.
Zacchaeus.
Nicodemus.
The Samaritan woman.
The woman caught in adultery.
The leper.
The paralytic.
The widow.
The child.
The thief dying beside Him.
Perhaps your mission today is not to reach thousands.
Perhaps it is to notice one.
One person who needs encouragement.
One person who needs forgiveness.
One person who needs somebody to listen.
One person who needs to hear:
“God has not forgotten you.”
One person who needs an invitation back to Mass.
One person who needs to know that Jesus Christ is not merely interested in humanity.
He is interested in them.
“On This Rock I Will Build My Church”
And now we return to Caesarea Philippi.
Jesus does not tell Peter:
“You are Peter, and now go discover your personal destiny independently of everybody else.”
He says:
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”
Peter’s mission is ecclesial.
It belongs to the Church Christ is building.
That matters enormously.
Christian mission is not simply millions of individuals independently doing whatever feels spiritual to them.
Christ forms a people.
A Body.
A Church.
The same Jesus whom Peter confesses establishes a Church and entrusts that Church with a mission.
And therefore our personal encounter with Jesus ultimately draws us not merely inward toward ourselves but outward—
toward His Body,
toward His people,
toward His mission,
toward the world He came to save.
The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail
Then Jesus says something extraordinary:
“The gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.”
Sometimes Christians hear those words defensively.
We imagine the Church hiding behind walls while evil attacks.
But gates are defensive structures.
There is another way to hear those words.
Christ is building a Church that advances into places of darkness.
Into despair.
Into loneliness.
Into addiction.
Into injustice.
Into violence.
Into unbelief.
Into broken families.
Into wounded communities.
Into places where hope appears dead.
And the promise is not that Christians will never suffer.
The Cross destroys that illusion.
The promise is that darkness does not get the final word.
Christ does.
That is why Christian mission can never ultimately be pessimistic.
We do not go into the world because we believe we are strong enough to save it.
We go because Jesus Christ has already conquered death.
You May Be the Answer to Someone’s Prayer
There is someone somewhere asking God:
“Do You see me?”
And God may send you.
Someone is asking:
“Does anybody care?”
And God may send you.
Someone is asking:
“Can God forgive what I’ve done?”
And God may send you.
Someone is asking:
“Is there any reason to keep going?”
And God may send you.
Not necessarily with a sermon.
Perhaps with a phone call.
A meal.
A visit.
An apology.
A listening ear.
An invitation.
A testimony.
A prayer.
A simple sentence:
“Can I tell you what Jesus has done in my life?”
Never underestimate what God can do through one obedient yes.
Your Life Is Now Part of the Answer
This entire series began with a question:
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
And perhaps we now see that the question is even bigger than we first imagined.
Because the world is still asking:
Who is Jesus?
Some will search Google.
Some will search YouTube.
Some will read Scripture.
Some will walk into a church.
But many will first encounter the question through a Christian.
Through you.
Through me.
Through the way we love.
The way we forgive.
The way we suffer.
The way we speak.
The way we conduct business.
The way we treat people who cannot benefit us.
The way we respond to injustice.
The way we care for the forgotten.
The way we face death.
The way we carry hope when everyone else has lost it.
And perhaps that means something astonishing:
Our lives become part of our answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?”
We can say:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
But then our lives must begin learning to say the same thing.
If Jesus Is Lord…
If Jesus is Lord,
then my time belongs to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my gifts belong to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my money belongs to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my sexuality belongs to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my relationships belong to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my career belongs to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my ambitions belong to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my wounds belong to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then my future belongs to Him.
If Jesus is Lord,
then even my suffering can be placed in His hands.
Christianity eventually reaches a point where we can no longer simply ask Jesus to accompany the life we have chosen.
We must ask Him:
“Lord, what do You want to do with the life You gave me?”
That is discipleship.
That is surrender.
That is mission.
And Perhaps This Is Where “Who Is Jesus?” Finally Leads Us
We began with the world:
“Who do people say that I am?”
Then Jesus looked at us:
“But you, who do you say that I am?”
Then, in the light of Christ, we confronted our own identity:
“Who told you who you are?”
And now:
“What are you going to do with the life Christ has given you?”
The questions are connected.
Because if Jesus truly is who Peter says He is—
the Christ,
the Son of the living God—
then Christianity cannot simply be one compartment of our lives.
Jesus cannot merely be someone we visit on Sunday.
He cannot merely be a comforting idea when life becomes difficult.
He cannot merely be someone whose teachings we selectively admire.
If He is Lord,
then He is Lord.
And the Christian life becomes the lifelong surrender of everything we are to everything He is.
You Have Met Jesus. Now What?
Perhaps the answer is simpler than we imagine.
Stay close to Him.
Receive Him.
Listen to Him.
Let Him change you.
And then—
go.
Go home differently.
Go to work differently.
Love differently.
Forgive differently.
Spend differently.
Speak differently.
Serve differently.
Suffer differently.
Hope differently.
Live differently.
And when somebody asks why—
tell them about Jesus.
Not merely the Jesus you learned about.
Not merely the Jesus somebody else described.
But the Jesus you have encountered.
The Jesus who forgave you.
The Jesus who called you.
The Jesus who told you who you are.
The Jesus who gave you hope.
The Jesus who still transforms lives.
The Jesus whom Peter confessed at Caesarea Philippi:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And then live in such a way that your life whispers the same answer.
Because perhaps the greatest testimony we will ever give is not merely:
“I know who Jesus is.”
It is:
“Because I know who Jesus is, I can no longer live as though I never met Him.”
Encounter becomes identity.
Identity becomes mission.
And mission becomes a life—
lived in Christ,
lived through Christ,
and lived for Christ.
