When people are faced with the reality of Jesus Christ, there are three, amongst many, different attitudes that we could take. Those three are: an attitude of Skepticism, an attitude of Criticism, and an attitude of Belief. These next couple of weeks, we will take a look at these three different attitudes.  This week we took a look at those who displayed the attitude of Skepticism. Those people were His family.

Skepticism means "an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object" also, "the method of suspended judgment, or systematic doubt." Basically, skepticism is when you have the facts in front of you, you have witnessed the actions and evidence of particular things, and yet you still have an attitude of doubt towards that object and therefore suspend judgment over it. And in this case, it was Him. Today, this takes the form of relativism.

This attitude was exemplified in His family. They had experienced Jesus from day one. They saw Him from an early age grow up to be a man. And yet amidst it all, they still thought, "This man is crazy." C.S. Lewis is quoted in saying this, "Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma. It is inexorable." What He is saying is that there are three conclusions about Jesus you can draw when you are presented Him. You can say either He is a LUNATIC, A LIAR, OR LORD. Those are the only three conclusions. Jesus' family thought He was a lunatic, BUT WHY?

Three reasons: 

- They thought that His religious fervor was going to ruin His health.

- They thought He was crazy for sacrificing a great life of comfort and security for a life of uncertainty and instability.

- They thought that His religious zeal was too much.

These three reasons are why people TODAY think that Jesus is a lunatic. The fact that His life was consumed with ministry and not Himself was crazy. The fact that He walked away from His life of security and into a life of instability was crazy. And the fact that His religious zeal and His claims were over the top was crazy. Because of these three reasons people think that Jesus said things and did things that He did not know were false.

And because they think this way about Jesus, they think the same way about those who follow Him. They think that as Christians and walking the way Jesus walked is complete lunacy. But it is NOT LUNACY. Being a Christian is the most SANE thing in the world. Because Jesus is not a lunatic. The claims that He made are true. And the way that He carried Himself with peace and love, the way that He reached out to others and lived a life of humility, the way He accepted people who weren't accepted, and the way His claims came true, PROVE that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. And if following Him makes me a lunatic, I gladly accept that title, because I know that living for Him is the most secure, sane, awesome thing to do and I encourage you all to do the same. It is worth dying to yourself so that you may live for Christ. God Bless!