A Controversial man

A controversial man
The gospel of John records this incident in the life of Jesus. John records,
“The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.” 
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” John 10:24-32.
From the time Jesus walked on this earth he has been a controversial person. When the Jews of his day asked Jesus who he was he told them so. They however did not believe him.
There is no middle ground with Jesus. True Christians believe Jesus is the One and Only Son of God. The Saviour of mankind.
Yet there are many in the world who refuses to believe in Him. They say He is simply a good man, or perhaps a prophet. Some would even deny the existence of Jesus.
Jesus however changed the world. Within about a century of his death his had followers had taken his message of salvation throughout the Roman empire. Even today as I write this thousands of people are hearing about Jesus and accepting Him as their personal Lord and Saviour.
For many today even in the western democracies where access to a bible is easy. Where a person can enter a church without fear. People sadly rely on the words of others as to who Jesus is. They have not actually read the Bible and in particular they have never read the New Testament that talks about Jesus and the Christian life.
What I would challenge you the reader to do is take some time and read at least the New Testament. Find out for yourself what it says.
There is an app called the You Bible. It is a free download and give you access to various versions of the bible so you can read it for yourself.
If you don’t want to go to the app. Bibles are available in book stores throughout the western world. Many churches give out free bibles without obligation to those who wish to study them.
I would also suggest you go and ask to speak to the pastor of a church. I generally recommend Baptist churches world wide. They will answer your questions.
The key here however is explore the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and decide for yourself what is truth.
Please think about it

He will make us good

He will make us good
C. S. Lewis wrote,
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” 
                                        C.S. Lewis.
Christians believe the words of the Apostle Paul who said,
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” 
                                                            Romans 3:23,24.
“All” means all every man and woman that has ever lived. Christians believe we cannot live our lives good enough to stand before a Holy God.
Christians believe God understood this that is why He entered His creation in the form of His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. He entered the world to show in earthly terms how far he would go to reconcile man to God. Mainly the death on the cross.
The apostle Paul writes,
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  
For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!  
Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation”
                                           Romans 5:6-11
The apostle Paul makes it clear we cannot work our way to heaven. Writing to the Ephesians Paul states,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.”
                                                                  Ephesians 2:8,9.
Through Christ God gives us a choice. Jesus speaking of himself said,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son”. 
                                                                                                            John 3:16-18.
The choice dear reader is up to you. Do you believe what Jesus said or not.
Please think about it. 

You and God

You and God

“No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.… No man can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful.”
                                                               Albert Einstein 
There are many people out there who would deny Christ existed. I disagree and frankly feel they are misguided. The overwhelming evidence is that Jesus existed.
The eternal question people have to ask themselves is who is Jesus.
The gospel of John records this conversation between Jesus and Martha
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 
“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” 
        John 11:25-27.
While Martha believed Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, many today as then did not believe.
Jesus made many statements about himself. He said,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 
                                                                                                                                             John 14:6b.
He made the following statement about himself saying,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son”. 
                                                                                                               John 3:16-18.
These are important statements that you must believe or reject there is no middle ground. C. S. Lewis noted,
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 
                                                                                      C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
The choice is up to you.
Most people think they know who Jesus is and have never read the New Testament for themselves. I would ask you the reader to read the New Testament for yourself. For it is only reading it for yourself that you can make a truly informed decision as to who Jesus is.
Please think about it.

A conversation

A Conversation

“Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  
You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 
Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” 
                                                                    John 4: 21-26.
Here as Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman Jesus breaks several social norms of the day, tells who he is, and what God the Father seeks.
First of all he a Jewish teacher speaks to a Samaritan woman. Jewish teachers hardly ever spoke to women additionally Jews considered Samaritans unclean and thus didn’t associate with them.
Secondly he predicts that the time will come “when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”
In other words something had to happen to prevent the worship at the temple. Something that occurred with the destruction of the Temple in 70 A. D.  shortly after the death of Jesus.
  Thirdly Jesus goes on to say,
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
Here is what the God the Father wants. God doesn’t care where we worship Him. A building is just a building. True believers worship God wherever they are.
We Christians believe each person is a part of the church. Believers in Christ make up the Church it is not a bricks and mortar structure.
The fourth thing Jesus admits to here, Jesus admits to being the Messiah.
The question to those who claim to be Christians is, do you worship God in spirit and in truth.
To those who are not Christians the question is, a question that Jesus asked Martha,
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 
                                                                                                                             John 11:25,26.
Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God the Saviour of the world?
Please think about it.

A note from History

A note from History

Flavius Josephus,(37AD-100AD) a Jewish historian, became a Pharisee at 19, later commander, of the Jewish forces in Galilee. He was captured by Romans and attached to their headquarters.
Josephus wrote of Jesus,
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first, did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.”
                                                 Flavius Josephus
That same tribe two thousand plus years later is still with us. I am one of them.
I believe the words of Jesus who said,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’" 
                                                                                                                                            John 14:6.
I believe the report in the apostle Johns gospel that states,
“The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  
I and the Father are one.” 
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 
                                                                                                          John 10:24-32.
Jesus equated Himself with God a crime punishable by death at the time. No man in his right mind would have said something like that. Especially someone as educated as Jesus.
C.S. Lewis states,
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 
                                                                                      C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
Jesus to my mind can only be one thing the One and Only Son of God. The saviour of mankind.
Still each and every person must answer the following question for themselves, spoken by Jesus to Mary upon the death of her brother Lazarus
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 
                                                                                                               John 11:25,26
The other choice Jesus set before all of us is,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son”. 
                                                                                                              John 3:16-18.
The choice is yours.
Please think about it.