No, I am not writing this to preach to you or to try to convert you. That is not my job. It is the job of God to change minds and hearts. I'm just delivering to you what I know and what may help you, should you be searching for meaning in your life, be dealing with guilt, failure or loss or are unsure of where you will go when you slip into eternity. Or, you may be simply curious. For, like it or not and as uncomfortable as it may be to think about, you and I will die. You may already be a person of faith and glad that you have come to the place of a like-minded person who shares your worldview or you may, sadly, have heard the Name Jesus used only as a curse word and have not seen Him modeled for you by your family or by so many of us who call ourselves Christians and people of faith.
That is where Jesus comes in. All of us who have ever heard of Jesus hold an opinion about Him. As a Christian and according to my Bible, Jesus is God the Son and the Second Person of the Trinity. The Triune God (Three-Persons-in-One) also includes God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. But countless people believe that Jesus was merely a human being, a wonderful human being and a strong prophet and a wise teacher and a great man who exemplified how we all should live. But that is as far as many will go.
The Jesus Who is revealed in the Scriptures which I believe in is all these things and much more. In addition, He is the Prophet of all prophets. He is the Teacher of all teachers. More than any other human that has ever or will live, He is caring, compassionate, full of love for all people and as God made man, He lived a perfect human life. He was remained fully God even as He become fully man. I cannot understand or comprehend this, much less explain how these things can be so. These things must be grasped by faith. Most of all, Jesus died the most horrific, tragic, painful and unjust murder in human history. He did this because death is the punishment for sin and we could not pay for our sin ourselves, so He paid it all for us.
That was not the end of the story, by any means! For Jesus, being the Second Person of the Triune God, rose bodily from a borrowed grave. He tells us that He is the only Way that we may know God the Father, be saved and be assured that our eternal destiny will be Heaven. These are the words of Jesus, not my own (John 14:6). It is not smart to argue with Jesus.
The Bible says that EVERY ONE OF US, including me and including you, have sinned and missed His mark of perfection in thought, word and deed. This sad fact holds true no matter how respectable, moral, or virtuous our lives may be. Before God, all of us stand as criminals and as people who, try as we might, are unable to attain His standards of perfection on our own. If you doubt this, just read Jesus' words in what is commonly known as the Sermon of the Mount and you will soon conclude that NONE of us have lived up to the precepts that we see there! (Matthew 5:3-48) (6: 1-34), (7:1-26). Since Jesus is the only One who, as a human, lived a prefect life and then died for us in our place, this is why Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that He is the only Way to God.
But we all can be saved from the eternal consequences of sin, which is separation from God in hell as well as be saved from the power from sin (as a lifelong process) now. It is called turning from living life on our own terms and living apart from God ("doing our own thing") to turning to Christ and believing that He is Who He claimed to be and counting His life and death to save us, according to the Scriptures (Romans 10:9-10).
If you have a Bible or access to one and know little about Jesus, I suggest the Book of Mark in the Gospels because it is the shortest one of the four Gospels of Christ's life. If you want to know what He is all about and about what He means to us, I suggest the Book of John.
Jesus.org
This website has comprehensive information about Jesus, and a wide variety of religious, moral and theological issues.
http://www.jesus.org/
Romans Ten: Nine Ministries
This website focuses on the Person of Christ, what He is all about and how we can connect with Him.
http://www.romanstennineonline.com/index/aspx
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