Meet Jesus

John 1:1-15: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus is God in human form.  He created the Universe, and then set aside the glory of heaven to come to earth as a man (Philippians 2:5-11), to live a perfect life, and offer himself as a sacrifice (payment) for our sins, so that we can have eternal life, rather than eternal death and punishment, and live with Him in paradise.

A quick understanding of the beginning of time may be useful.  God is Holy.  He is Love.  He is Pure.  He is Righteous.  He alone is worthy of our worship.  

He created angels, but one of those angels became prideful and desired to usurp God and take his place.  That angel was known as Lucifer and now as Satan or the Devil. 

When Satan sinned against God in his (Satan’s) pride, and refused to worship God, he was cast out of heaven.  And he took 1/3 of the angels with him.  They are now known as fallen angels or demons.  In other words, he planned a coup against God, and tried to get the other angels to join him.  He was successful with some of them, 1/3 to be precise, and those fallen angels were cast out of Heaven as well.

Then God created man, and gave him dominion over the earth.  Satan had no power over the earth unless he could get it from man.  God’s plan and instructions to Adam and Eve were to subdue the earth and multiply it.  They were born sinless, and they could put Satan and all evil to an end and live in absolute paradise --this earth, but without sin, suffering, disease and death-- with God by following His instructions.

Unfortunately again, man failed.  Satan attempted to deceive man by calling into question God’s instructions, and whether God was really good and truthful.  Man fell for it, eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  At that moment, sin entered the earth, and man could no longer subdue Satan and the demons, because he gave away his power--his dominion of the earth-- to Satan at that moment.

That is when God’s pre-ordained plan kicked in.  Only someone sinless could subdue (destroy) Satan.  Man was no longer sinless as God had created him to be.  So, God came to earth in fleshly form: God in the form of man, named Jesus Christ—Christ means the Messiah or Savior.  He did it for love—because He loved us, hiscreation, so much, and did not want anyone to die and spend eternity inhell. 

The only acceptable sacrifice or payment for sin is a blood sacrifice.  That’s why the Israelites sacrificed bulls and goats and lambs—as required by the Mosaic law.  But when Jesus came, he became the sinless, perfect sacrifice once and for all.  He took all of our sin on himself when he died on the cross.

BUT!  Because He is God he did not remain dead.  His death reclaimed from Satan the keys of Hell and the authority on earth to subdue (destroy) the enemy.  Satan is the enemy for it is him that is the cause of all pain, death, disease, sin, etc.  Jesus then ascended back into Heaven and sits with God at His right hand. 

Here,  people can get confused and think we believe in 3 Gods, but we do not.

Man was made in the image of God.  We are 3 parts—body, soul, and spirit.  God also is 3 “parts”, God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Spirit (the Holy Spirit).  We cannot wrap our minds around all the mystery and majesty of God.  But we can know that we are made in His image.  We are 3 in 1 (my soul and spirit are as much Cindy as my body is).  God also is 3 in 1.

We believe, as the Bible says, that Jesus is a prophet, and also a priest and a king.  We believe that he came with great news for the Israelites and for the rest of the world: a new covenant that offers eternal life with God.  And the best news is that it is a gift—it is free.  All one needs to do is to believe on the name of Jesus Christ, that he came in the flesh and shed his blood as payment for our sins.  There is nothing we can do to work our way to heaven—we can never be good enough or do enough good things, because we can never be perfect.  We all have sinned, and have fallen short of the glory of God. 

The Bibletells us that the only way to the Father (and to Heaven)  is through the Son, and that the Father and Son are One.   A person can only go to heaven and spend eternity in paradise with God if they accept the payment of Jesus’ death on the cross to pay for their sins.

I encourage you to read the Bible and investigate.  The Bible says that even the demons believe in Jesus and shutter.  Obviously the demons are not going to heaven.  It’s not just a matter of believing that He lived and was a prophet, but believing on His name and his death as forgiveness for sin and believing in his resurrection as a guarantee of the inheritance we will have with Him in eternity.

Once you have believed on His name for the salvation of your soul, you then give your entire life to Him.  2 Corinthians 5:15 puts it this way: He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  Giving our lives to Him is no form of punishment.  It's the most satisfying way of living life.  It's the only thing that truly fulfills.  You may have to try it to know it is true, because the last thing Satan wants is you living for Jesus.  So he'd likely try to get you to believe that surrendering your whole life to Jesus is boring and not cool.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Not only is living for Jesus so much fun, it takes all the stress out of life, because, when living under his "roof" (his protection), He cares for all of our physical needs.  No stress about money--He takes care of us!  It doesn't mean we will be rich.  It does mean we will have what we need.  

Also, Jesus told us that as we live for Him, we are storing up treasure for ourselves in Heaven.  That is literal.  Imagine that for every person you speak to about Jesus, or every person you pray for, you are putting $10,000 in your IRA account.  That would be quite motivating, would it not?!  That is exactly what it is like, only far better.  I don't know quite what the treasure is, but I know He's storing it up for us, and it is directly related to how much we invest.

I urge you to investigate Jesus, and your relationship to Him, because eternity is at stake.  And I mean not only your eternity, but the eternity of everyone—I am thinking of all the people you know--your family and friends-- who you will be able to talk to about eternity.  How will you influence others and where will you and they spend eternity?  I pray it is with God in heaven.  I pray you give your whole life to Jesus, and gloriously live it out, building up treasure for yourself in heaven, and bringing as many people as possible into God's kingdom.  Everyone needs to know.  We want Heaven packed out and Hell empty.

If you'd like to learn about Heaven, I highly recommend Randy Alcorn's book, "Heaven."  We have A LOT to look forward to.  It's not going to be boring, but rather glorious, fulfilling, satisfying, and better than anything we could even dream.