My Jesus, My Saviour

A couple of years ago I had a friend who was not a believer and had almost no knowledge about what's in the Bible begin to ask questions about my faith and what I believed was the Truth. I was thinking last night that I have no idea who is reading this blog, since only a couple of you write back. ;) So I'm thinking that it's entirely possible that some of you happening upon this site don't know Jesus and may not know why He came to earth and why we who are believers love Him like we do. Back when my friend was asking questions, I sat down and wrote out the following. I hope those of you who don't know Him will be inspired to find out more about the King of Kings, Precious Redeemer, Lamb of God. And for those of you who do know Him, I hope this will remind you of what an amazing God we serve. God bless you all.

The book of Genesis is about the very beginning of God’s relationship to man. The Bible teaches that God is timeless. He has always been. There was never a time where He wasn’t there. He also has many angels, whose purpose is to both serve Him and worship Him. At some point before creation, one of his angels, named Lucifer, decided that he wanted to be equal to God. Isaiah 14:12-14 tells how Lucifer was cast out of Heaven. The Book of Revelation makes reference to the fact that he took 1/3 of the angels with him. These angels were no longer servants of God, but servants of Lucifer, who is also called Satan. They are no longer known as angels, but demons.

So, the first part of Genesis is about when God created the world. It goes through all of the different things that He created. Then in chapter 1, verse 27, you see that He decided to make man. God created us for the same purpose that he created the angels, to have fellowship with Him and to worship Him. However, just like the angels, He also created us with a free will. We can choose for ourselves whether we want to follow Him or not. Otherwise, the love would not be complete. If you only love something because you have no choice, how sincere can that love be?

So like I was telling you the other night, from the very first people God created came the first disobedience. Satan lured Eve into tasting the fruit from the only tree in the garden that God had commanded them not to eat. This again was giving them a choice. They were able to eat from every other tree in the whole place, just not this one particular tree. So, of course, that’s the one they ate from. At that point, man was cut off from God. And starting right then, there had to be restitution for sin. God didn’t stop loving Adam and Eve, but they lost that perfect communion that they had had before they chose to sin. From that point on, every human has been born with a sinful nature. I’m sure you’ve been around your sisters’ kids enough to know this is true. No one has to teach a 2-year-old how to lie. It just comes naturally.

So the rest of Genesis is stories about the first people on earth. Several generations after Adam and Eve, the world had gotten so wicked that God could only find one righteous man and his family. That man was Noah. Because He had decided to destroy the earth, He commanded Noah to build an ark for his family, and then a pair of all the animals as well. I’m sure you are somewhat familiar with that story. Once the flood was over and the waters had receded, God promised to never again destroy the earth by flood, and gave the sign of the rainbow as a promise that that would never happen again.

A few generations later, God chose a man named Abraham to be the father of many nations. All three major religions of the world trace their roots back to Abraham; Jews and Christians through his son Isaac, and Muslims through his son Ishmael. However, the Jews are God’s chosen people. They are special above all others. Abraham’s son, Isaac, had a son named Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. One of those sons was Joseph, who through a series of unfortunate events ended up a slave in Egypt. Because God looked favorably upon Joseph, he ended up becoming the number two guy in Egypt, just under Pharaoh. When a famine came over the whole Middle East, Jacob’s sons moved all of their families to Egypt at Joseph’s invitation. This is where they grew in number for many years, truly building a nation of Israel (which is what Jacob’s name was changed to.) After Joseph died and time had passed, the new pharaohs didn’t have any reason to want to treat the Israelites favorably, so they were eventually made slaves. The people cried out to God for deliverance, which is where Moses comes in.

Most of the story of Moses is in Exodus. I know you might at least be somewhat familiar with the basics. Moses went to Pharaoh and told him to let the Israelites go. He refused over and over, and God sent plague after plague on Egypt until the last straw. On that last night, he sent an angel of death to kill the firstborn son of every Egyptian family, including the pharaoh's. However, he told the Hebrews (Israelites) how to avoid losing their firstborn sons. They were to kill an innocent lamb and put the blood of that lamb on the doorposts of their homes. When the angel saw the blood, he would “pass over” their homes and the people inside would be safe. This was the very first Passover. And it set the stage for what would happen many hundred years later on a Passover weekend, when the blood of Jesus would be shed for the sins of the entire world.

Well, Pharaoh finally decided to let the Israelites go after this terrible night. The Israelites gathered up all of their stuff and headed out of there. This is called “the exodus.” Pharaoh later changed his mind and chased after them, which is when God parted the waters of the Red Sea and the people crossed over. When the Egyptian army was trying to cross over as well, the waters came crashing back down on them and they were destroyed. While the Hebrews were in the desert, God gave Moses many instructions on how the people were to live. This is what’s known as “the Law.” Part of that law was the very famous Ten Commandments. There were also very detailed instructions on how to make sacrifices to atone for their sins. This always involved the killing of an innocent animal to pay for the sins of the guilty.

OK – to make a long story a tiny bit shorter, Because of disobedience, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years but finally ended up in Canaan, which was their Promised Land. This is where modern day Israel is today.

The rest of the Old Testament is stories of the Israelite people rebelling against God, being punished by God, and turning back to God. God loves these people so much, yet they could not remain faithful to Him for very long. The people decided after a while that they wanted a king just like everybody else had, so God let them have a king. They had some really great kings, such as King David, and some really terrible kings as well. But throughout the entire Old Testament, God promises his people a messiah, a savior, a deliverer. They long for him and watch for him. Between the Old Testament and the New Testament are 400 years of silence. God stopped sending prophets to the people, and they didn’t hear audibly from Him for four generations.

In the meantime, the land of Israel came under the rule of several different empires, finally ending with the Romans. They were forced to pay taxes to Rome, send their boys as soldiers and do all of the things expected of Roman subjects. They hated this, and longed for their promised Messiah, who they believed would come in as a military hero and get rid of all the oppressors Israel had been dealing with and they would finally be on top for once. They were not at all looking for, nor expecting, The Prince of Peace.

The first four books of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are also known as the Gospels. “Gospel” means “good news”. Each one of these books tells the story of Jesus from a slightly different perspective. They are all beautiful in their own way, and I recommend that you read all four of them. Jesus Christ was the most amazing person to ever walk the face of the earth. He is so easy to fall in love with just reading about how He treated those he came into contact with, and then seeing what He went through out of His love for us. (By the way, if you haven’t seen Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion,” it would give you incredible insight into this sacrifice. It’s hard to watch, but an experience you will never forget.)

The basic gist is found in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.” God sent Jesus to be the final sacrifice to save us from our own sins. This is what makes Christianity different from all other religions. Every other religion talks about what you have to do to get to God. Christianity talks about what God did to get to us. It was an unbelievable sacrifice on His part, and yet He would have done it even if it was only for one person. He did it just for me. He did it just for you. God loves YOU so much that He sent his only son to die on your behalf, to pay the price for your sins so that you wouldn’t have to. He did it so that you could spend eternity in Heaven with him, instead of having to serve out your own sentence of death for the rest of time. This is why they call it Amazing Grace.

So, the rest of the Bible talks about the beginning of the Christian church, and there is a wealth of fabulous information packed in those pages. But there is plenty of time to read and absorb and study the Bible. You don’t have to do that before you can decide to follow Christ. The fact that you are searching is evidence that God's Spirit is working in your life, seeking to draw you to Himself. This is not something that mankind does naturally, because we seek to be the answer to all the questions in our own lives.

To respond to this drawing of God, the only requirement there is, is that you confess to God that you need Him. Confess that you have sinned and that you need and gratefully receive His forgiveness. Thank Him for the precious gift that He is freely offering. Invite Him to be the ultimate authority of your life and acknowledge that He is your saviour. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith. It goes on to say that salvation is a gift from God, and not something that you can work for. If we could do something to earn it, then that would give us a chance to feel like we are somehow responsible for it, and that would just feed our pride. The best part of salvation is that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to earn it. Isn’t that a blessing? It’s just there for the taking. All you have to do is ask.

You asked me the other night if I feel guilty all the time, and wouldn’t it just be better to not know that I’m offending God, or something like that. I can tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes, there are times when I feel convicted that I acted in a way that I shouldn’t have, but that just gives me an opportunity to confess my sin to God and thank Him once again for his grace, that he could love someone like me. I mean, it’s not like you never feel guilty about something you have done, is it? You just think of it as your conscious. It’s actually very freeing to just be able to admit to God that I screwed up once again, and to know that he’s ready to forgive me and forget all about it.

Once you invite Christ into your life, the best part is that He never leaves. No matter what you do. Romans 8:38-39 says, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I believe that with all my heart.

Now, here is the part that also makes Christianity different from all other religions. John 14:6 says, “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” Christians get ridiculed for being exclusive. We are hated because we believe that there is only one path to salvation. But the fact is, if you believe the Bible is God’s word, then this is what God said. He didn’t make it difficult. He just made it specific. You either choose to believe that Jesus is who He says He is and accept that personal gift, or you don’t. But God desperately wants you to choose Him.

I pray that if this is the first time you've thought about Jesus as God's gift to humanity that this will set you on an investigative course and you will begin to seek out the truth for yourself. You will not be disappointed in what you discover about Him. And it just might change your life.