|
God so loved the world, Scripture says, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish
but have everlasting life.
Jesus Christ is not merely a man who became very religious in
His life and ended up being murdered by religious leaders.
Jesus Christ is God Himself who became a human being in order to
live among us and to suffer and die for sins.
I know that the whole thing sounds sort of strange to an
unbeliever's ears. I can still remember how it all sounded
to me. Preachers always sounded so intent, so desperate to
get the importance of Jesus Christ across to their audience.
I had no real objections, as a young boy, to the idea that Jesus
died for sins. But none of it really made much sense to
me. If Jesus died for our sins, then fine. So why do
I need to worry about any of that now?
Jesus did die for sins. A terrible and impossible price
(God's own eternal Son) to pay for the sins of a dark and evil
world. He suffered in our place, taking our sins onto
Himself. He did this in order that we might be saved, that
we might be rescued from our own stupidity and wrongness.
People who are not Christians find little to think or talk
about, when it comes to what Jesus actually came here to do.
They tend not to think a lot about sins, so the idea of
salvation from sins often seems like a mysterious and
questionable event. Many religious people who do not know
the Lord (and there are many of them) will say that they believe
that Jesus died for sins, but then they will go on to assume
that they must somehow do enough good things in life to earn
their way into God's good graces. They do not understand
that Jesus has already opened the door of heaven to any and all
who will believe God.
Believe and repent, the Gospel says. That means to stop,
turn around and go God's way. A thief is expected to stop
going his own way and to turn to God's way of living. But
it also means that a religious person (such as Nicodemus was, in
the Bible) must also stop trusting in the merits of religious
goodness, and realize that God accepts us only on the merits of
Jesus Christ.
This does not mean that sin no longer matters. It always
matters. But sin cannot be removed by good deeds and
religious ceremonies. It can only be removed by faith in
Jesus Christ. He loved us enough to lay down His life for
us. When we come to understand what Jesus did for us on
the cross, we give our lives to Him, and He gives us His own
life. We live because He lives. And we have a home
in heaven because that is His home.
We may not know what Jesus looked like, exactly. A Jewish man
living in the first century, maybe He had a beard, and maybe
not. But we know that to see Jesus was to see God, our
heavenly Father. Not because He went around all the time
with some kind of supernatural glow, but because He always
demonstrated God's love and compassion for everyone. Jesus
accepted people, touched people, healed people, fed people,
talked and ate with people. He knew that we are all
sinners, and yet He treated us as though we were all God's
friends.
The power of God to change a human life is in Jesus Christ.
He continues to demonstrate this fact every day, as men, women
and young people turn to trust in Jesus. On the streets,
in prisons, in churches, in homes, in rescue missions, youth
rallies, church camps, wherever people are willing to place
their hope in Jesus, God is willing to transform their lives.
he takes away their sins and he gives them eternal life.
Just like Jesus said He would.
The above graphic may be used by Christian believers in various kinds of
personal witness, for church programs, and other Christian
activities. There is no charge for this use, so long as
the copyright/credit info is included with the image or a link
back to this site is provided.
To use the graphics on this site,
right click the image (Mac users hover the mouse cursor over the
image) and select the "Save As" or "Save Image As" and save the
file on your computer's hard drive. Images not saved to
your computer will not work properly (especially animated GIF
files), or will suffer broken links in a short time.
|
