What is it about Jesus that shows His mighty power? When did He display His godly strength most clearly? Why do billions believe in Him as One sent from God, with many millions believing in him as the very Son of God? More importantly, why do you believe in Him?
Is it His miracles?
What are the greatest miracles from the life of the Savior? I am sure there are at least a few wonderful examples you can call to mind.
May I share one of my favorites?
You'll find it by reviewing Matthew 14: 23-31, Mark 6: 46-51, and John 6: 15-21.
By what law can liquid water be made to provide a stable surface suitable for walking? Jesus knew how it operated. He knew how it is possible for water to support the weight of a man. He knows all the limitations and capabilities of physics. As great as it is to think of Jesus walking on the water, I believe there is a more important miracle in this story.
I believe even greater than Jesus walking on the water, was Peter walking on the water.
Peter, who only saw his Lord walking so, immediately set out to come to Him in the same way. Peter, who only knew it possible by the scene he was then witnessing, probably could not tell us how it actually was done. Through his faith, Peter sought to bring to pass the great miracle without a full knowledge of its operation. Think of it! What great faith had he shown!
What have you seen in the life of the Savior or another example of faith that caused you to believe so simply and completely?
In remembering great examples of faith, I urge you to reject the temptation to think, “I’ll never be like that.”
Why? Because you can be like that!
Consider these words of the Savior:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do."
John 14: 12, emphasis added
You might not be called upon to perform some great public miracle. But I am confident in the power you have to make great things happen quietly, privately.
You have the power to move mountains of doubt, and to turn meager morsels of faith into mighty feasts to everlastingly satisfy even the most stubborn pangs of hunger to your soul!
Now, listen carefully lest I be misunderstood in such an important matter as the divinity of Christ, and in our subservient position relative to Him.
As spectacular are the miracles of Jesus we usually remember, none of these were unprecedented.
As far as I can tell, all but one of the miracles wrought by the Savior during His mortal life were executed in the authority of a great Prophet, and not by His matchless power as the Son of God.
Healing sicknesses, raising the dead, controlling the weather, multiplying food, fasting for forty days, etc, were all performed previously to Christ's mortal ministry by others of God's prophets.
So what is it that He alone could do? What was His mission, the defining act of His ministry?
The greatest manifestation of His godly power may not impress those seeking a great sign or spectacle of public achievement. These acts, so miraculously brought to pass, comprise "the most transcendent event" ever to transpire. Yet, unless we come unto Him in a spirit of meekness and patient learning, we may never really come to know and feel and do all that we ought in response to the perfect love He showed us in those last hours of His life among us on this fallen Earth.
These events—visually striking though they are to us believers, by images of agonized prostrated midnight prayer, bloodied clothes, an illegal arrest, a rushed trial, a hasty conviction by false testimony of false witnesses, a borrowed condemnation by those who had no legal authority to execute criminals, a savage beating, a cruel cross, and finally, an empty tomb—all these now have significance because of the testimony of the Holy Spirit witnessing their importance to each contrite spirit, in addition to twenty centuries of commentary intervening between them and our time. In their time, as still in ours by those of little faith, they were casually dismissed, tragically overlooked, and outrightly denied (see Acts 4).
Dismissed or denied, embraced or extolled, the miraculosity of Jesus' atoning sacrifice stands nevertheless. In the words of one of His latter-day Apostles:
"Mortal experience points evermore to the Atonement of Jesus Christ as the central act of all human history. The more I learn and experience, the more unselfish, stunning, and encompassing His Atonement becomes!
When we take Jesus’ yoke upon us, this admits us eventually to what Paul called the 'fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings' (Philip. 3:10). Whether illness or aloneness, injustice or rejection, etc., our comparatively small-scale sufferings, if we are meek, will sink into the very marrow of the soul. We then better appreciate not only Jesus’ sufferings for us, but also His matchless character, moving us to greater adoration and even emulation.
Alma revealed that Jesus knows how to succor us in the midst of our griefs and sicknesses precisely because Jesus has already borne our griefs and sicknesses (see Alma 7:11–12). He knows them firsthand; thus His empathy is earned. Of course, we do not comprehend it fully any more than we understand how He bore all mortal sins, but His Atonement remains the rescuing and reassuring reality."
Neal A. Maxwell
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Jesus's invitation to you and me is to put off our natural man, and become a saint through Him, emulating Him in ways limited only by our faith and diligence in knowing Him by keeping His commandments. He has promised to share all He receives from the Father. We have received exceedingly great and precious promises, whereby we can become heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. (Mosiah 3; Doc. & Cov. 84; 2 Peter 1; Romans 8)
"Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7: 37-38)
Stay close to Him! Look to Him! Worship Him in spirit and in truth!
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"'What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.'
In His earthly ministry, the Master outlined how we should live, how we should teach, how we should serve, and what we should do so that we could become our best selves."
"Let each of us: Learn of Him. Believe in Him. Trust in Him. Follow Him. Obey Him.
By so doing, we can become like Him."
Thomas S. Monson
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Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!
See also:
The Purifying Power of Gethsemane, by Bruce R. McConkie
The Way of the Disciple, by Dieter F. Uchtdorf
None Were with Him, by Jeffrey R. Holland