Reflection Paper Essay

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on three questions. The first question I will look at is “Did Jesus Claim to be God?”. While he never said the words “I am God” I believe that he did claim to be God in other ways. The second question I will look at is “Why are personal testimonies important in sharing the gospel?”. For this Question I’m going to unpack why I think we should turn our mess into our message. Finally I’m going to reflect on why we should strive to be more like Christ by answering “If a person is a Christian, does it matter how they live their life?”.

Did Jesus Claim to be God?

There are some people out there that say Jesus never really claimed to be God. While you won’t find the words “I am God” written in red in your Bible, Jesus did claim to be God by saying the words “...Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58, New American Standard Bible)
In order to truly understand what Jesus was saying here we have to look back in time a bit to the story of Moses.   In Exodus Chapter 3 Moses is having a conversation with God and he asks God “...Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13, New American Standard Bible) God answers Moses by saying “...I AM WHO I AM...Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.”
When Jesus said to the Jews “I Am” he was basically claiming to be God. The Jews realized that he was claiming to be God and that is why they tried to stone him for blasphemy. “Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” (John 8:59, New American Standard Bible) This was not the only time that Jesus referred to himself as I Am. John records at least seven times that Jesus referred to himself as I Am.
Jesus also says that he is one with the father. “I and the Father are...