God is a loving and forgiving God. He is also just and sin is detrimental to any relationship with him. Sin cannot be in His presence. But, He wants to have a relationship with us and He loves us so much that He provided a way to atone for our sins. As the Israelites, His chosen people, were delivered from the bondage of the Egyptians, a system was created to appease God of sin. That is a long story for another time, but basically, a blood offering was needed, a sacrifice for the sins of the people. But, because of the sins of the people, including the priests, this was needed over and over, every year. Read through Hebrews to learn more about this. So, God the Father, sent His only Son, Jesus, who had no sin, to be that blood sacrifice to redeem all who believe. Jesus Christ came to this earth, becoming fully man and fully God, giving freely His life, taking the sins of the world on His shoulders, being nailed to a cross and being raised from the dead on the third day. He showed true love, unconditional love. Because of what Christ did, we can be forgiven.
Continue reading “Love and Forgiveness”
Tag: faith
Cost and Blessing of Following Jesus
At first I thought of titling this post, “Strength through Tribulation and Persecution.” But it is more than that. Every trial we go through, every time we are persecuted, every struggle, God is with us and we grow spiritually and become a better person and we have an opportunity to help others in similar situations. He is always there whether we realize it or not. As a believer, we need to realize we will go through trials. There is a cost to following Jesus. But it does not compare to the blessings and the reward we will receive by knowing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. As the last of the series on “I am Saved…Now What Do I Do?” I want to prepare my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, in particular those who are young believers of things they may face while giving words of encouragement that it is all worth it. I also want to start this discussion by making it clear that what we do does not determine our salvation. It is what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Our sins are forgiven because of Him. We just need to accept that gift of grace He has given us. What we do is a result of that salvation. When we are saved, there will be a change in our hearts, our lives and our actions. The blessings are tremendous, but that does not mean things will be easy. It just means it will be worth it. Continue reading “Cost and Blessing of Following Jesus”
The Armor of God
The third in our series on how to live as a believer once we are saved is:
Put on the full armor of God; Submit to God and resist the devil.
What does it mean to ‘put on the armor of God?’ and how do we do that? Spiritual battles are a part of a believer’s life. Not only do we have the battles within, the struggles between wanting to do what is right and desiring to do the things of this world contrary to the will of God, we also have an enemy who desires that we fail and not get close to God, and he wants to keep others from coming to God. He will use those desires and your weaknesses to come after you. But, we can resist him and we have the weapons to do it. Continue reading “The Armor of God”
Born Again
Born again is kind of an odd term. What does that mean? Why would one want it? How do we accomplish it? In my previous post, “I am Saved…Now what to do?” I listed some points in how to live a Christian life, what we should do as a church and how to overcome spiritual battles. I think this list answers all three questions. There may be more, but I think I got the meat of it. Comments are welcome if I missed any. I mentioned that I would go into more detail. Today I will cover the first one.
- First, you must be born again. Believe in Jesus Christ and through that you will become a new creation.
Character of the Church
When I first read Hebrews 13 and the notes from a study I had (you can look up The Summit Church or J.D. Greear for his study of Hebrews; the bullet points below summarize part of this study), it seemed this was about worship. It is. But it is also about the character of the church. Or, perhaps part of worship is the character of the church. To start with, what is the church? It is not a building and not where you “go to” to fulfill your duty as a Christian, though that is an important part of your spiritual life. That is a time to fellowship with other believers and worship God, but our act of worship should be non-stop throughout our week and our life. That is a study in itself, but not for this post. What the church is, though is you and me. It is Christ’s bride. It is the body of believers. It is those who follow Him. Continue reading “Character of the Church”
My Daily Scriptures 