Our desired goal in Beyond Today articles showing proof of God and the validity of the Bible is to assure those responding to Jesus’ call of “Follow Me” that God has provided down through the ages a certifiable “spiritual GPS” to enable us to be the Master’s disciples, and to offer motivation to travel the route it lays out. But let’s understand something very basic. We can believe God exists and that carefully preserved Scripture is His divine Word, yet at the same time be at a personal spiritual standstill! Why? Because a personal Bible that remains unopened on a daily basis might as well be one more book lost in a dark closet.

Let me ask a personal question of those of you who believe in God and believe that the Bible is His written revelation. When is the last time you opened your Bible and your heart and let God directly speak to you? Just be honest, brutally honest at that, because honesty is where any movement towards God begins. The Bible is full of His answers for you about how to experience a meaningful life, but Jesus Christ would ask each of us two pivotal questions to answer in turn. There is no way around His simple but profound inquiries.

How you answer these two questions goes to the heart of your being a disciple of Jesus Christ or not—presenting measurable evidence as to whether an uncreated Creator has interrupted and intervened in your life and is transforming your life in witness to others. Are you ready? Here are the two great questions of discipleship Jesus would ask you.

“Who do you say that I am?”

We explore the intimate magnitude of the first question by joining Jesus and our fellow disciples standing before the rocky ramparts outside Caesarea Philippi. It’s here the questioning encounter occurs, as recorded in Matthew 16:13-18:

“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven’” (emphasis added throughout).

Notice Peter gives a direct answer to this profound inquiry. This is not merely an “in house” conversation among observant Jews, but is set before a nearby imposing cliff face laden with pagan statuary within its caves and crevices. This is the moment and backdrop.

Peter’s response and Jesus’ further declaration was ultimately for all humanity. Jesus was both the Son of Man and Son of God and not merely one more in a line of prophets. He was sent by the living God and not by lifeless idols. This was a revelation from Above to Peter. God the Father had interrupted the former fisherman’s life. Henceforth Peter’s life would be inextricably altered to, by God’s grace, become more than he was.

The One set before Peter and the others was the embodiment of God’s rescue plan first laid out in Genesis 3:16, which said that the Seed of the woman would ultimately crush the head of the serpent. He was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15 that God would raise up a Prophet like Moses (this One as the ultimate Lawgiver and the Deliverer not merely from physical slavery, but from spiritual slavery).

This is the One the apostle John would aptly describe in the opening of his Gospel in these terms: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).

This is the One to whom total allegiance is to be given and not merely put up on a mantlepiece along with other objects of worship including the idol of self. Jesus stands alone! As He declared in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And the same truth was later declared through Peter, stating he healed “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth . . . Nor is there salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10, 12).

But is a verbal answer regarding truth enough? No! The ultimate answer is one that’s imprinted, or embedded, in our daily lives—that every moment, thought, word, action and deed beckons us with God’s Spirit to embrace Christ’s partnership from the beginning steps of all that comes our way and persevere with His help.

Imagine on the last night of Jesus’ human existence how encouraging it was to Him and a prod forward to what lay ahead that His followers would see that He was the Answer. He prayed: “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You love me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25-26). This provides a meaningful bridge to cross over to the second great question Jesus would ask of you as His follower.

“Do you love Me?”

You can know someone and even know all about someone and talk to that person every day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have the kind of intimate relationship Jesus prayed would be fostered between our Heavenly Father, Himself and His disciples—not just Peter and his companions, but you and me.

After Jesus’ resurrection, He met His disciples of that time at the Sea of Galilee (John 21), where He had first given them the invitation of “Follow Me.” Life is in some ways a circle, with God often meeting us back where it all began, continuing to probe our natural human defenses as to whether we fully grasp what He has granted us and further preparing us for the next steps of discipleship.

It was here where it all began on the shoreline that Jesus would question that same disciple who had so boldly stated, “You are the Christ.” But now with precision Jesus delves deeper as to what that meant to this disciple, especially after Peter’s threefold denial on the night when Jesus humanly needed him the most.

Jesus repeatedly knocks on the exterior of Peter’s heart, asking, “Do you love me?”—with the fisherman responding, “You know that I love you!” (see verses 15-17). The conversation was likely in Aramaic, but in the Greek translation Jesus twice uses the word agapao, a broad term for love that can apply to what we must have for all people, whereas Peter’s responses use the term phileo, relating to brotherly love, as in a family sense—that is to say, “Not only do I love you, but I love you closely as family.”

But now Jesus presses Peter on that, His third question, as recorded in Greek, also using phileo. That is, “Do you love Me like a brother, as you say?”—or “Do you really?” This and the fact that it was a third inquiry pierced Peter’s heart, Scripture stating He was “grieved” (verse 17)—probably recalling his threefold failure in denying his Lord and Master.

He was now humbled, and he gave up on his shallow understanding of what He was ultimately being called to and frankly had been running away from—a relationship based on abiding love, being welcomed into the family of God and receiving God’s ongoing help. This God is to be respected, obeyed and praised—but not from afar, as we are allowed to call God our “Father” and Jesus Christ our “Brother,” beckoning us back to the great echo throughout Scripture: “I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people” (Leviticus 26:12). In fact, They must live in us (John 14:23).

Peter could now start to “get it.” He had run out of the wiggle room of human reasoning. He responded to Jesus, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love you” (21:17). Perhaps standing in the expanse of a single moment the great truth sunk deeper than ever that “we love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We worship a Savior who put skin, His skin, in the game and, as the saying goes, “left it all out on the floor.” He gave it all.

Perhaps as you read this column you, too, stand on the shore of return in the circular pattern of rendezvous Christ has orchestrated out of His great love for you. Good. Understand it as part of the great pilgrimage. Be not afraid (Deuteronomy 31:6). You are not alone! That knocking on the door of your heart (Revelation 3:20) will come often, and it should. For these two great questions remain before us, as we give answer to Him who is Above, every day, in following the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life.”