Because God Loved Us

Because God Loved Us

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,  but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.
One of the arguments I get all the time when I talk to people about Jesus is; How can God enter His creation? Or Why would he become a man? It just seems foolishness.
My answer to the first question is God being all powerful can do anything He wishes. To say he can’t do anything is to diminish His power.
My answer to the second question why would he become a man is this.
Ultimately we will be judged by God. If God is a fair and just God as I believe He is. Then I believe he needed to have more than an intellectual knowledge of what it is to be a man.
 It’s one thing to intellectually know something. It’s an entirely different thing to experience it. It also comes down to optics for lack of a better word.
I believe had God not entered the world and experience everything it is to be an man, we could stand before him and honestly say you don’t understand what it is to be human. You’ve never experienced it first hand.
As it is in Jesus God experienced all it was to be human. From the mundane things such as feeling the rain, or the sun against His face. To the love of family and friends.
Through Jesus God experienced what it was to celebrate at a wedding from a human perspective.
He experienced temptation and all the emotions man experienced. The shortest verse in the Bible say’s “Jesus wept.”
He also knows what it’s like to fall pray to political enemies. To be beaten unmercifully. To be condemned to death for simple political expediency.
On top of all of this because God is all knowing. He knew beforehand what would happen to Jesus. Yet He still sent him. In doing so he showed his love for us. As the apostle Paul wrote,
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
In other words God loved us even while we were not following Him. While we were falling short of His ideal for our lives.
Please think about it.

Not by Works

Not by works
The apostle Paul wrote,
“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.
Writing to Titus he said,
“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,  he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:4,5.
We are saved by the grace of God. We get to heaven because of God’s mercy.
The apostle Paul writing to the Romans says,
“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.
Christians do not believe we can be good enough to stand before a Holy God, simply because we are human and flawed falling short of God’s ideal.
C. S Lewis points out 
“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
As Christians we do not believe we have to wait for judgement day to know whether or not we will enter heaven. We can know here and now by sincerely accepting the sacrifice of Jesus.
I know to some who are not Christians reading this, this may seem odd event the apostle Paul said,
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18.
I suppose if man had his way God would simply come down and say “here I am worship me.” But I believe Gd realized that, that would not produce true followers. Many would simply worship because they feared what he could do to them.
I believe God in His wisdom knew that those who believed in Him through faith are true followers who would follow Him no matter the cost.
Thus it is a faith thing. Either you believe or you do not. What I would ask you the reader to do however is to take time to read the New Testament. To see what the believers in the time of Christ believed . Then make an informed decision for yourself. After all you have nothing to loose and I believe you have eternity to gain.
Please think about it. 

The Way

The Way
The apostle Paul wrote,
“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.  
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”  
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,  for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”Romans 10:9-13.
Here is a clear statement by the apostle Paul of what Christians believe. He said,
“...if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
It I know is a hard decision to make for some people. To believe that Jesus is all he said he is, Lord and God. God incarnate.
The apostle Paul even notes,
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18.
Still this is a decision all who hear the message of Jesus must decide. Jesus speaking to Martha said,
“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 you are the Christ the Son of God, who was to come into the world,” John 11:25,26,27.
Martha had seen Jesus in person. She’d heard him speak and seen miracles. She knew beyond a doubt that Jesus was the son of God. Do you?
You can know all about Jesus by reading the New Testament and seeing for yourself what his disciples and others thought of him and why.
If you don’t know Jesus as your Saviour take some time to read the New Testament and make your own mind up.
Please at least think about it.

Man and God

Man and God
“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.” 
                                                                                  C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain.
Over the sixty plus years I’ve been on this earth I’ve listened to many people say there is no God. I know they are wrong.
To quote C. S. Lewis again,
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.” 
                                                                                                   C.S. Lewis.
The other day a friend and I took our camera’s and went to take some photographs of the autumn leaves in the area. We ended up in a small nature trail a few hundred metres from the mighty Niagara Falls. There, there was in contrast to the mighty Niagara a series of tiny small falls, just a metre or so high connecting a couple of small ponds in which a group of ducks were swimming.
Compered to the roar of Niagara this was peaceful and quiet. Yet in it I could see the handiwork of God. The trees bedecked in their fall colours. The ducks quietly swimming. I cannot believe that all of what I seen was by chance.
God was at work. I’m not one to worry if it took a six billion years or six days to get this way. I only know in my heart that there was a divine creator behind it all.
I think the reason people cannot see God is that they have to varying degrees closed their minds to the fact that He exists.
We have become very much a people that demand concrete signs.
The apostle Paul said,
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,  but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” 
              1 Corinthians 1:18-25
We as individuals want God to reveal himself using our rules. After all it would be far easier if God just appeared in the flesh standing in Jerusalem with a legion of angels demanding we worship Him. At least then we’d know for sure.
God however does not work like that. God asks us to have faith in him. The writer of Hebrews stating,
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.’
                                                                                                     Hebrews 11:6
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” 
                                                                                                Hebrews 11:1.
And perhaps Faith in God is the hardest thing for a person to have in this day and age?
Please think about it.