CHRISTIANTY II



It is kind of funny. I was reading the article I wrote about a year ago and it is amazing how much things have change since then. I have finished my first read through of the New Testament and a lot of things have become clearer to me. My orginal article is quoted in this one.

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What can I say about it? It has a bad rep and I can&#39;t blame anyone for thinking poorly of this religion. After watching people like Pat Robertson and all those televangelists I would hate what I am too. Frankly when I see them on TV I feel embarrassed that I am even loosely associated with them through our common belief in Jesus. I have argued with other Christians about this but some of them seem to think the work these people are doing is good. Granted from their point of view it might be seen as that because I will admit that they do bring people to God. At the same time though I have to ask myself how many people they turn away from God with their words. Let me also say that I am still a relatively young Christian myself and I am still learning about what it all means. But this is what I have figured out so far.[/b]
This is still pretty much the same. People like Revrend Phelps and Pat Robertson still make it hard to be a christian. They, in my opinion, have the message wrong as far as how things are in this world. People like Phelps look at 9/11 as God lashing out at America because of the sins this country is committing. Robertson readily agreed. God was involved with 9/11 as far as He allowed it to happen.

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What does being a Christian mean to me? It means being a follower of Jesus Christ. Some people don&#39;t know it but we have our roots in Judaism. Jesus was the promised Messiah that God told about when the Jews fled Egypt. The old covenant that He made with Moses was to hold until the Messiah came.[/b]
This still pretty much holds true except in my studies I came across something that opened my eyes a little bit. When God gave Moses the 10 Commandments hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years past in which Israel was sacrificing the best of the flock to forgive their sins. It dawned on me that the Old Covenant wasn&#39;t so much to hold until the Messiah came but in as much it was created to help Israel accept the idea of a sacrificing the best of the flock to forgive sins. Jesus was the best of the flock and was even referred to when he was alive as the Lamb of God. The best sacrifice that could be made in the temple was a pure lamb. I thought that was quite interesting.

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I&#39;ll stop there. Lets take a step back to the Garden of Eden. People don&#39;t understand why we are separated from God. It wasn&#39;t always the case. In the beginning we were with God in paradise, a choice was made by one of us and it opened us up to sin and in that one moment separated us from God. People talk about original sin as something we inherited from Adam and Eve and I think they are right to a point. We aren&#39;t responsible for the sin that was committed there because that would be just as silly as me being responsible for something my father did. What happened in the Garden of Eden is that when Adam and Eve were separated from God any children they had inherited that same knowledge and in the same way were separated from God. It wasn&#39;t the apple, it was the sin of disobeying God that separated us.[/b]
This still holds the same for me as well. Jesus is our bridge to God, a very narrow bridge which holds in line with what the bible says "The path to destruction is very wide and the path to salvation is very narrow, many will not travel the narrow path" (severely paraphrased). Adam destroyed the bridge between God and Man and Jesus re-established it for us.

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In the Old Testament you can read in various places about how people used to make sacrifices at the temple for any sins they committed. This was supposed to please God. But man being imperfect got to the point where the sacrifices being made were not cutting it anymore. A sacrifice had to be made that would clean the slate between God and Man. This is when Jesus came into the picture. He lived his life preaching about love and God and heaven and was put to death by his own people in fear that the Romans would take out their anger against any rebellion Jesus might stir in the temple. So for no reason other than fear and ignorance Jesus died. While he was on the cross he took upon himself every sin that was ever committed and every sin that will ever be committed. When he died, what most people don&#39;t know, is that he went to hell to be cleansed of that sin and when he rose from the dead he broke the bonds of death forever. What he did was open a door for us so that we could be back in God&#39;s presence.[/b]
It is funny how looking back I said it was fear and ignorance. The High Priests were actually trying to get Jesus out of the way because they were afraid he was going to stir up Israel and Rome was going to fall down upon them and kill them all. The catalyst of his death was fear and ignorance but He died because that was God&#39;s plan for him. God&#39;s master plan from the very beginning. People talk about how God is cruel and everything. Yet He knew even before he created Adam that Adam was going to fall away from him, and God still created him. He knew what our race was going to turn into and He still did it, with a plan to make sure we had a chance of getting back to Him. I think about that and it leaves me in awe. If I knew something I was going to make was going to turn out the way we did, I would probably not have made it at all. It is something to think about. Also Jesus did not burn in Hell for our sins. Before he opened the way to heaven through his sacrifice Hell was seperated in to Hades and Paradise. Jesus died and went to paradise to preach God&#39;s word to those who had gone before him and to lead them out and up to heaven with the keys of hell in his hand. He had defeated death. Amazing isn&#39;t it!!

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The other thing most people don&#39;t know is that Jesus didn&#39;t want to die. He was scared out of his wits about the whole deal. He didn&#39;t grunt stoically when they pounded those spikes into his flesh, he screamed out in agony with each hammer strike. He was a man and he faced death as a man. His death was slow and agonizing and when I think about that and what he went through it makes me want to cry because he was up there on that cross because of me and how I am. The story of his death goes a bit deeper than that but I think what was said was good enough for what I am trying to say here.[/b]
I look at this passage and I think about going to see The Passion in a few days and the thought scares me. Up until now I only had an idea of how horrible it must have been, but I am afraid this movie is going to open my eyes to the truth of what happened and truly how terrible it was. He sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemanie (sp??) prior to all of this happening. He was that scared about it. Can you also imagine bringing the man, who was going to betray you, into your close friends. Can you imagine loving that man like a brother even though you knew what he was supposed to do? People are trying to lay the blame for Christ&#39;s death on the Jews of the time, or on the Romans....but in reality He died because of all of us. Because of the people we are. That is something to think about.

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Christianity is very simple. All you have to do is just accept that Jesus died for your sins and you are in. A lot of people think that you have to do good deeds in order to prove yourself worthy but if you really weigh the good that you do with the sins you commit you will, if you are lucky, cancel out anything bad you did. The bible says that there is nothing we can do here on earth to be made worthy of being in God&#39;s presence. He knew that and He sent Jesus down here for that very reason.[/b]
It is very simple but it get a little complicated as far as trying to understand it. All you have to do is accept Jesus as your savior, a free gift. However once you accept Jesus if you don&#39;t find yourself changing then you probably haven&#39;t accept Jesus. This is why the bible says "Faith without works is dead" In other words if you don&#39;t change the person you are then your faith will die. It took me a while to understand that. As followers of Jesus we are supposed to make a difference in this world, however making that difference is not enough for salvation. As a person we should not trust in the things we do to save us. We should trust and accept that Jesus has saved us. Jesus washes us clean and makes us righteous, the bible says that man&#39;s righteousness is like dirty rags, that the best among us are still not worty. People like Mother Terresa fall short of what is needed without Jesus. I know a little of how she lived her life and I know I fall far far short of where she was, so I can only imagine the kind of person I am in God&#39;s eyes.

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The term bible thumper was used on this board about the same time I wrote this. Let me talk about that. Can I just say what a thrill it is to be saved. How good it feels to have God and Jesus in my life. When I finally accepted it all I felt so incredibly good that I wanted to share that feeling with everyone. Once I felt God&#39;s love I thought "If everyone could feel this there would be no doubt at all." So I went out and start preaching to people, and in reality I had no clue what I was talking about.[/b]
That excitement is still there though now it is tempered by a little wisdom. I used to think that the term "bible thumper" was a bad thing but in reality it isn&#39;t. When I have a problem I can usually find my answers in it. God was pretty precise about most things and all we need to do is look to Him for guidance on how things should be. 9 times out of 10 the bible has the answers we need. So thump away on that bible because it is more helpful than we actually know.

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What most Christians overlook, what I overlooked, was what Christian means. It means follower of Christ. People thump the bible yet I think they really don&#39;t know what it really says. Sure the stories Jesus told were very important and are the blueprint for the new covenant that He made with us. They tell us how we should act as Christians and they try and explain it in a way that we can understand. Lets face it, that is what the bible is all about. God speaking to us in baby talk about what we should be doing. All of that aside, all you have to do is look at Jesus and how he lived and that should give you a pretty good idea of what it is all about. It is about loving one another. That is really what it comes down to. We are all in the same boat here guys, and we are all in it together. Not one of us from the pope down to some poor schmuck on death row is any better than the next man.[/b]
Live our lives like Jesus did. I still think that rings true. However at the time I was writing this I overlooked the fact that Jesus was out everyday preaching the word. Going against what was popular at the time and making waves with the locals and especially the temple priests. Regardless of what was going on He was doing his job day after day. I believe there is a way to emulate that, going out preaching the Word in the right way. Some people are good at it and some aren&#39;t. As christians we cannot afford to be PC. Since I wrote the last article I have seen what PC means and I know it is bad. God is not PC. God cares about us a great deal. Jesus was not PC in the least, and he cares about us a great deal. Being PC leads to bad things.

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You might say "What the pope and some guy on death row?" That&#39;s right. Lets talk about sin. The basic fact is in the bible God pretty much states that at this point if we do something wrong all we have to do is ask for his forgiveness and it will be forgotten. So going with that we can see someone who, for example, steals a stick of gum. This person realizes what he did was wrong and asks God to forgive him. God does. Then we have someone who kills a person. This person after killing a man realizes that what he did was wrong and goes before God and asks for forgiveness. God forgives him no questions asked. So going by that, in God&#39;s eyes a sin is a sin. If he will forgive someone for stealing a piece of gum as quickly as he will forgive someone for murder then that pretty much tells me that in God&#39;s eyes those two transgressions aren&#39;t any different. I guarantee you that the pope sins on a daily basis so how does that make him any different from me?[/b]
I tell you something else I have learned from reading the bible. God holds us accountable for the kinds of people that we are. Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for them. Why? It can be very hard to love our enemies and even hard to pray for them. However Jesus told us, if we do not have mercy on others, God will not have mercy on us. If we do not forgive others God will not forgive us. God is of the mind "If you do not forgive someone for doing something to you, how can I forgive you of the same thing you do to me?" It is definitely something to think about. As christians we need to stand out among other people as examples and that spotlight is a hard thing to have on us. It is true that we are still human and as flawed as everyone else but we need to keep a check on ourselves. Is it fair? No it isn&#39;t. But then again life isn&#39;t fair is it.

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I think most also Christians overlook that while they are up on their soapbox preaching and feeling good about the fact that they saved, they are also in broad view of everyone looking. That means that person is a direct example of what a Christian is, and frankly, I don&#39;t blame other people for being turned off from Christianity by how those people act. The only way to lead is by example and if you truly take a Christian way of life you aren&#39;t as loud as those people on their soapboxes.[/b]
Being on the soapbox? As a christian we are supposed to walk on soapboxes. How much does that suck? God wants us out there talking to people. He wants us out there telling his Good Word. Jesus lived on a soapbox. If someone was sinning he would tell them to stop and repent. The difference is he was without sin, unlike us. That makes it harder to preach about God and what he wants from us. If someone sees us falling short of what we are talking about how can they not see what we are as just hypocritical? At the same time we are going to fall. We cannot get defensive though, all we can do is ask for forgiveness and move on. That is a hard thing to do.....trust me on that one.

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The last thing I believe is that what someone does in their life is between them and God. In the end they will have to deal with Him just like I will too. No one else belongs in there and I believe any Christian who sticks his head in that area is doing themselves and that person a great disservice.[/b]
This is still true, how someone lives is still between them and God. However how can you say you love someone and not try and stop them from something that in the end is going to hurt them a lot. One of the small things I have learned in my walk with God is, get them to accept Jesus first. Once they are your brother, then you can talk to them about how they are. I don&#39;t believe there are many people out there who do not know what God considers right and wrong. They may not agree with it but I think they know.

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I think in the end all we as Christians should be doing is spreading the word of God. That doesn&#39;t mean telling someone he is going to hell, or that he is a sinner because he is gay, or any of that. I think the basic message we as Christians should be spreading is "Hey did you know God loves you? Do you know what He did for you and for me? You&#39;re not going to believe it."[/b]
I think my last statement still holds true to a point. We do need to tell people what Jesus did for us. I don&#39;t think hell should be mentioned because I think that will only work on a few people. I haven&#39;t quite figured this part out, but I expect as I mature as a christian some understand of what I should be doing in this area will become clearer to me.