This Man Thinks He's Jesus H. Christ!

If Jesus Christ came back and walked among us, what would it take for you to believe it was Him?

Would the moon have to turn red for you to believe? Would you need to hear trumpets? See Him coming down from the clouds? Watch as the devil's head is stuck on a pike?

Would you expect an end to all wars, a global calm, a gigantic traffic wreck caused when all those SUV drivers get sucked up in the Rapture?

What exactly would it take for you to believe it was Him? Would you need a miracle?

What if He made you feel good, told you you were beautiful, removed your sin? Would that be miraculous enough for you, or would He have to defy the laws of physics, turn water to wine, cure a leper, maybe even sink an impossible billiards shot?

If parlor tricks are what you seek, José Luis De Jesús Miranda is not your man.

"They expect Him to come back in the clouds with a lot of angels and glory, but they forget that Paul said He would first come as a thief in the night," says De Jesús, haphazardly slapping around billiard balls in the game room of his brand-new Missouri City home. "When they open their eyes, I'll have the whole world in belief with me."

De Jesús claims he's the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Yep, you read that right. He says he's Him, the Big Man, the Son of God, the King of Kings. And he's not some alcohol-addled homeless guy screaming damnation from a street corner. He's a dapper 60-year-old from Puerto Rico who claims thousands of followers. Along with congregations scattered across the Americas, his ministry, Creciendo en Gracia (Growing in Grace), has a 24-hour cable channel, complete with sermons, news programs and music videos, that reportedly reaches over two million homes.

His message is simple (you know, once you get over the whole "I am Jesus" thing). All sin died with Christ on the cross. Anytime a priest or a preacher calls you a sinner, he's a liar who's trying to steal your money. In fact, other churches should be picketed, which is something his followers have done in Miami and Latin America.

"Believing in Jesus of Nazareth does not make you a Christian," he says. "Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew. He wasn't a Christian; he was a Jewish man...People who put their eyes on Jesus of Nazareth become Jews, and they don't know."

But those in the know are increasing, thanks to large donations and slick public-relations campaigns. Last year Creciendo en Gracia's central office pulled in over $1.4 million and added over 100 churches. You might think all these folks are being conned by a false messiah with lavish tastes, but if that's the case:

It's one happy con.

The history of the world, as told by De Jesús and his followers:

"You were a spirit before the creation of the world, and God said, 'I need you to know the power that I have and the love that I have for you, but you will know that by experiencing the opposite, which is evil,'" explains Axel Poessy, media rep for Creciendo en Gracia. "By creating the Earth, He put you in a body of flesh."

With flesh comes sin, which God made possible by establishing laws. "When someone tells you that you can't do something, that's when you actually want to do it, and that's what activated your flesh, and that's why Adam was told, 'Don't do this,' and that's the first thing he did," she says.

Enter original sin, the yoke that dragged everyone down to the depths of hell. God kept dealing out tough love, eventually offering up tablets to Moses to let us know where we were really going wrong. But then He gave the world His Only Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who was free of sin and ready to die for ours. Which He did. Quite famously.

Most of this might not sound very different from what you'd hear in a Bible study class, but right after the crucifixion is where Creciendo en Gracia takes a detour -- a very sharp detour, if you really think it through.

"Over history, when Adam was created up until the time when Jesus died on the cross, it was the Law of Moses that was applicable to humanity," says Poessy. "And that is what is referred to as circumcision, because it was by works. You had to please God by doing things or abstaining from things...

"But when Jesus died on the cross, He knew that nobody could be perfect by pleasing Him with the flesh. He said it was actually just a shadow of something better that was to be established, something else that was to come...

"So He came here in a body of flesh and by being the perfect man and being crucified on the cross, He took the Law away, and He established the gospel of grace, which is uncircumcision. And uncircumcision is equivalent to grace, and it means that it's no longer by works, but it's rather by faith."