I well recall the time that the rock opera Jesus Christ: Superstar came to Toronto. It played in two large places in the city to tens of thousands of people.

A deacon from the church I pastored at the time, along with staff from the Yonge Street Mission in downtown Toronto, published a booklet about the opera. The booklet took a careful review of the opera and put the teaching of Scripture alongside in order to let people see the differences between what the Bible said about Jesus and how Jesus viewed Himself.

About 20 of us gathered at the performance sites and handed out the attractive booklets to people as they left after the opera. We stayed to collect any booklets that were discarded in order to keep the street clean. It was remarkable that very few of the booklets were thrown away by the customers.

One haunting line from the lyrics was: “Do you think you're what they say you are?” In John 5 we see clearly that the people did not think Jesus was who He claimed to be. Jesus calmly, and without any special effects, claimed to be God.

The people who listened were shocked and quickly rejected Jesus’ claim as blasphemy. In other words they thought of Him as no more than a man, and an evil one at that.

But if we believe that Jesus is God, then we have One Who can meet our deepest needs. Jesus is able to mend the broken heart. He has authority to chase away our worst enemies.

Jesus is able to do everything He said He would or promised He would. This is so helpful to people in need. I refer to people in need of forgiveness, in need of patience to endure suffering, in need of sympathetic understanding, in need of hope for the future, in need of light for darkness.

Jesus is well equipped to come to any of these situations with all the supplies we need to persevere and ultimately overcome all our enemies. Do you have this hope?

Do you believe Jesus is what He claimed to be? Try Him and see. Come to Him and pour out your heart and tell Him all about your sorrows and pain.

Perhaps you even despair of life itself. Let Him know what is on your heart and ask Him for what you need right now.