We forgot an Easter post... I promise we'll do something cooler next year. But for now, a big "Happy Belated Easter" to all the people on the planet! He has risen and he reigns!
Eater celebrates the most pivotal day in human history.
He is risen and He reigns!
Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
If you only talked to your best friend when something was wrong, would they really be your best friend? What if you only spoke to them when you needed something? Doesn't sound like a very personal relationship, does it? Well sadly, that's how must of us are with Jesus. We only talk to him when we need something from him.
There's a song that played once at the church I used to go to, and it went something like
"You say that you love me,
that you can't live without me,
but then why do you call me,
only when you need me."
You can't have an intimate relationship with someone if that's the only time you talk to them. We have to take that step to push ourselves, to spend time with God regularly. I struggle with that a lot, but God makes everything better. I find peace in him. He is Jehovah-Shalom, meaning "God is peace." (Judges 6:24 NLT) [The Hebrew word for this can be translated either as Jehovah-Shalom or Yahweh-Shalom. I chose Jehovah because I liked the sound better :P]
It's stupid how I stray away from him and try to do things my own way, just to end up crawling back to him days later. But that's how we are. We're corrupt and broken people, and we need God in our lives as much as possible.
And that's not going to happen if you only talk to him when something is wrong.
So I want to challenge you. Sometime this weekend, take some time just to hang out with Jesus. It can be through a devotional book, through reading the bible, lying down and listening to some good Christian music, anything that can get you closer to God.
Because honestly, he doesn't need us. But we need him.
So let's make the best of it.
Oh, and if you'd like to read more about the names of God, you can click here. It's where I got the information behind Jehovah/Yahweh-Shalom. :D
Closer by Sanctus Real. It goes great with this post :) Have a great day and God bless!!
You've probably heard of a movie, based on a book, called The Hunger Games which came out recently. If not, I'll sum the plot up: so every year in this future country, twelve kids are chosen from each area (called districts) to fight for their lives in something called the Hunger Games. They have to do this to pay for rebellion against the government (called the capitol).
So I saw this movie last Sunday and throughout the movie, I really saw Jesus in it. Many times I could relate a scene in the movie to what Christ did for us. Here's the first one: these children/teenagers had to fight to death due to a rebellion they had caused. We have to face the wages of sin which are death (Romans 3:23) because we have sinned, and rebelled against God. In the movie, only one person comes out alive. But in reality, none of us will survive the wages of sin. None of us.
The more main and prominent example is one that reflects Christ offering to take our punishment. So the contestants of the Hunger Games are chosen by a drawing. In the beginning of the movie, the drawing takes place. When her sister gets chosen to participate in this contest that could bring about her death, Katniss, the main character, steps up and volunteers to take her place. When we had to go face the punishment for our sin, Jesus said that He would pay our ransom.
So Katniss (who represents Jesus) goes off to fight. She's basically an underdog; kind of like Christ. I mean, when the Lord lived on earth He was homeless, broke, and an outcast. When Katniss is placed in the Hunger Games, she wins. The Hunger Games represents death. Katniss is like Jesus. So Jesus offered to be a substitute for us and He goes off to face death. Not only does He face death, but He beats it. He overcame Satan and the grave.
I was glad to see how a secular movie showed the gospel in disguise. I knew that these examples and metaphors would be an interesting subject to blog about (that's why I'm writing this post). And as you all know, this movie is extremely popular. So next time you think about or talk about the Hunger Games, be sure to associate God with it also.
Would he recognize you? Not as yourself, but would he recognize you as a his follower? Would it be clear to everyone who you belong to? Or if Jesus came back now, would it be a possibility that you would be left?
I think a common idea is that all we have to do to be a true Christian is accept Jesus, and we have a free ticket to heaven. We can live our lives the way we want, we just have to go to church every week or so. Well that's not so true. Matthew 7:21-24 shows the truth.
Here's the passage in case you're on the mobile site:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." (Matthew 7:21-24 ESV)
I don't know about you, but I really don't want to be one of those people. But how can we be sure of that?
Look at verse 21 (the first sentence), ".. but only the one who does the will of my Father.."
We have to do God's will, not our own. We can't stay on the path we were on.
Being a Christian is more than just acknowledging Jesus as Lord.
Because of God's love for you, when you truly become saved, you want to live for Jesus. You have a passion for doing God's will instead of your own. That's a big part of what a being a Christian means. You have to adjust your life to his plan. Not him adjusting to you. You can't serve yourself and serve God.
Matthew 16:24: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."
Deny yourself. You ignore what you want. You put Jesus first, putting aside your own dreams and goals. You hand them over to God, and instead, get something much better in return.
Take up your cross. You're bearing the weight of following Christ. It's not always a light load either. But it gives you purpose. It gives you hope. And it gives you life.
Follow me. It's pretty straight forward. You follow Jesus wherever he goes. He does not follow youto where youwant to go. We have to be obedient, and trust his judgement. Jesus knows what he's doing.
If you are dedicated enough to follow Jesus as stated above, then that's being a true disciple. You aren't deciding what you want to do for God..you're following his plan, and allowing him to work through you.
And at the end of it all, either when you return back to dust, or when Jesus comes back, he wont just recognize you as yourself.
He will recognize you as his follower, his disciple, and his friend.
How will people remember you when you're gone? What will they see?
Will they see the essence of Christ? Will they see just another one of the crowd?
Will they see light? Or will they see darkness.
Abel left a legacy. And he still speaks, even from the grave. (Hebrews 11:4)
We should be like that. Our life should shine so bright, that even when it ends, it still speaks.
Here on earth, we are ambassadors for Christ.
How can we do that if we live just like everyone else?
We are the LIGHT of the world. Stop trying to cover it up. You have already been chosen.
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to show the world who Jesus really is.
We cannot to that if we don't love God.
We need to love him everything--especially our souls, if we want to do this right.
When you idolize a role model, you want to be just like them. You imitate them.
That's how it should be in our relationship with God. We should love him so much we want to be just like him,
to be just like Jesus.
Through that is how we'll leave a legacy. Not by how much money we have, or the friends we made, not even solely on our actions.
It's by who you were, and still are.
It's by how you see the world.
It's by your motives, by your thoughts, by how you interacted with others, by your dreams, by how you respond to situations, by your heart, and by your soul.
And in my eyes, all of that means nothing if its not reflecting Christ.
Our sole purpose in life is to bring glory to God, because he deserves it!
He created the Earth, he created what we know as the laws of physics, he created you, me, your family, friends, he made love, happiness, joy, he created life in general. And there's so much more.
But we need to live for so much more than just ourselves. We need to live to show the world how great our God is.
That's a real legacy. Making your life a path that leads to Jesus.
That's how you can be remembered.
Maybe by following Christ, your life doesn't turn out how you planned it.
Although I can't tell you the exact outcome, I can tell you that it will be a whole lot better than what you have planned. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
So remember, in this life we represent Jesus. And let's do it right,
by leaving a true legacy.
Also, here's the song that inspired me to write this post. Legacy- by Sanctus Real. :D
(Lyrics)
What will they say when I'm gone,
In words that are written in stone?
Under my name, what will they claim about me?
Oh, I want to leave a legacy to be remembered
More than just a memory that fades away
Because we only, we only get one life
Free me, my hands are tied
I'm so tired of wasting time
These endless inventions
Steal my attention from real life
And when its done, when its over
Oh, I want to leave a legacy to be remembered
More than just a memory that fades away
Because we only, we only get one life
And will the world see Christ
When they look at my life?
Oh, will the world see?
Mmm, come on, give me, give me, give me real life
And no more, no more, no more wasting time
Because we only, we only get one life (Just one Life)
Oh, I want to leave a legacy to be remembered
More than just a memory that fades away
Because we only, (Get one shot, at this one life) We only (One moment in time)
Because we only, we only get one life
Ever since March 13 (the day I created CTGA), I have been very active in online ministry. Lately, I have been discussing Christianity with atheists (this has been going on for about 2-3 months) on a social networking app specifically created for iDevices called Instagram. On Instagram, you simply share photos. Photographers use it to show off their work, I use it to be goofy and sometimes promote the Gospel, and some use it to insult the reality of Jesus. I, like the crazy person I am, target these sites and share the love of Christ while answering their questions. A few days ago I ran into a picture that had on it a quote by an unknown author and it went as follows:
"Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew He would be resurrected anyway,"
I confess, I was actually moved and it made me thinking, and for once in my life, I agreed... for about two seconds. My mind went back to some of the sermons I've heard about the Crucifixion and to some quotes in books, that I've started (but never finished -.-) and it got me thinking "How great was the sacrifice?" I knew the cross had to hurt, but I didn't exactly know how much until one day I stole a book from my dad's office called "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. I was just skimming through the book aimlessly until I ran over a chapter called "Was Jesus' Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?" I wasn't really pursuing this question but I just thought I'd read the chapter anyway. I read very gruesome details about the cross and how Jesus DEFINITELY died. Today, I want to share with you some of that stuff and how great the sacrifice really was.
Let's start in Gethsemane when Jesus prayed in the garden shortly before His arrest. According to Matthew 26:38, Jesus was depressed- extremely depressed, so depressed it was to the point of dying. He knew what was going to happen the next day. Let me explain some stuff about his depression. Luke 22:44 records that Jesus started to do something quite peculiar in the garden; something we would say is silly. He sweated blood. Many skeptics think that this passage is ludicrous and say it's just imaginary. Well, it turns out that this is an actual medical condition called hematidrosis. It's very rare, and is caused by a high level of psychological stress. If you want more details on it, you may Google it. But there was something else this episode of hematidrosis did, it made the skin fragile and extremely sensitive, keep that in mind.
After Jesus was finally arrested and brought before Pilate, he was whipped. This wasn't no ordinary whipping either; they used this little guy called the Roman whip. This little whip had a few metal balls and a couple bones. The metal balls would take care of making bruises and contusions eventually opening them, and the bones would do the shredding and cuts that would commonly expose the spine. Remember how the skin was extremely fragile and sensitive due to the hematidrosis. The Romans were very brutal, and mercy was a foreign language for them. Often, the Roman soldier would do more than 39 lashes; if he lashed too many times, the victim would surely die. 39 lashes wasn't the limit, it was just the required minimum, and the soldier doing the flogging could lash the victim until he got bored. At the end of 39 lashes, the victim’s bowels would be hanging out from the back and he would lose a ton of blood! History claims that there were very many people who died of the lashing before they were hung on the cross. The least that the flogging would do is put the victim though this thing called hypovolemic shock. What that is, is when you lose a ton of blood and your heart does funky things to pump blood that isn’t there, it causes lightheadedness and thirst. Remember that. Let's just say this; it was exceedingly laborious to walk with a cross on your back, colon hanging out, spine exposed, and a stinging discomfort. He passed out (remember the hypovolemic shock?) and the Romans forced a random stranger named Simon to carry his cross. And now, the real suffering begins.
I introduced you to the word excruciating earlier and now I want to tell you were the word comes from: there was no word in the Greek language that could describe the pain on the cross. They had to create a new word literally meaning out of the cross. Think about that for second. They had made up a word to describe the pain of cross. It was beyond painful, it was beyond torturing, it was excruciating.
Let’s talk about the nails. Many skeptics think that Jesus couldn't have been nailed because most historical art and stories say that the crucified victim was held on the cross by ropes. Archaeology has disproven that. In 1968 archaeologists in Jerusalem found around 30 Jews who died around A.D. 70 one of them was still on a cross and, lo and behold, nails were found in his feet. Now, about the nails, where were they in Jesus' hands? Most believe it was the palms, but due to his weight the nails would rip his hand and he would have fallen off the cross. The nails were most definitely driven into his wrists where there was a little nerve there called the median nerve. The nail would have crushed that nerve. This is where it gets painful; the nerve is the same kind of nerve that we know as the funny bone. So, imagine you have a pair of pliers and you decide to squeeze the funny bone until it crushes. That's what Jesus would've felt in both hands and both feet. Ouch x4. Using simple mathematical equations, we can also determine that Jesus' arms were stretched and that both his arms were dislocated. Hanging there, in order to breathe he would have to lift himself up with his nail driven feet, tearing his foot and scraping his open back against the splintery wood of the cross. Eventually, he would become exhausted and just stop breathing and die, or it could've been by the slow and painful death of asphyxiation. The exact cause is unknown.
Physical pain must have been monolithic, but even worse, the spiritual pain. Jesus hated sin. God’s entire wrath towards sin was poured out on to Christ. Think of your least favorite food, think about spending six hours having that food shoved in your mouth being forced to swallow, and when you got full, it wouldn't stop. The pain and the disgust would be tremendously high. I believe this is similar to what happened to Jesus' spirit on the cross. He carried our lust, our pride, our envy, our idolatry, our lies, our stupidity on a rugged cross!
Now, let’s think about God the Father in this situation. One of the most emotional moments I have had concerning God's sacrifice was one night when my dad (who is a pastor) guest preached at another church. In that sermon, my dad mentioned God's sacrifice and he said this (not exact quote), "If I loved a people who insulted me and I wanted them to know me, I would've sacrificed myself to die, but I would never send my only son". I am his only son, and from my perspective, if my dad asked me to die for people who hated his guts, I would have ran away from home thinking my father had gone crazy. It's absolutely impossible to comprehend, but it was necessary for mankind. But get this, He doesn't need us. He didn't have to do all that stuff at all. But He did. Why on earth He would want to, I really have absolutely no clue. J. I. Packer puts it well:
There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. (Knowing God p.42)
We can have unconditional love, but will we go to the point of excruciating love? Why would Jesus go through all that physical and spiritual pain just to make friends with his worst enemies? God is one of the craziest Beings the world will ever know, but I'm very glad I know Him. Let's worship!
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
What if I came up to you one day and asked how you were doing with your relationship with God? What if I asked you how hard you were trying? What would your answer be? I hope you don't say you're trying. Why? Because if you are, you've already failed.
In John 5:39-40 Jesus tells the pharisees that they search the scriptures, for they think they will find life in them. But that is not the case. Life is in Jesus. Now let's take a look at these religious men of the day. They would do their best to follow the Law of God because they were deceived and believed that they could get right with God by their own works. That is a thing called religion.
The pharisees were deceitful and mistaken about the true gospel, and so is a lot of our world today. They did not understand that God didn't give the Law so that we could obey it; because we can't. The Law's purpose is that we fail. No one can honestly say that they haven't ever lied, stole, lusted, taken the Name of the Lord in vain and coveted. No one. Not even these "righteous" hardcore religious people.
We are all guilty of breaking the perfect, holy, and just Law of God (Romans 3:23). How then, do we seek and know Him? There is only one way: Jesus Christ (John 14:6). God loves you and me SO much that He gave up everything so that you could be in His family: His only beloved, begotten Son (John 3:16).
We seem to always be underestimating God's standards and thinking we can be made right with Him by our works. If you go to church every Sunday of your life, feed every poor person there is, and never cuss- but don't have Jesus- you still aren't reconciled with the Lord. There is nothing you can do to save yourself (Ephesians 2:8) and there is no way possible to earn grace through works of the Law (Romans 11:6)
If you have seen the viral video Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus by Jeff Bethke, you will recognize when I quote some lyrics from this awesome poem-
Religion says do, Jesus says done
Religion says slave, Jesus says son
Religion puts you in bondage while Jesus sets you free
Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see.
There is no prayer, no ritual, no practice, no pilgrimage, no life dedicated to an idol, and no good work that can get you into Heaven. Jesus did it all on the cross. Salvation can't be earned; only received. When Jesus was dying for you, He said "It is finished"(John 19:30). That means He did it all. Religion tells us to be obedient so we can earn God's love, but the truth is that we are called to be obedient because the love of Jesus makes us want to be. Religion says that God will love us when we do something for Him, but Jesus tells us that we are loved now (Romans 5:8).
Remember that 1John 4:19 says that "We love Him because He first loved us", not "He loves us because we first loved Him". Redemption, bought by Jesus Christ, is a free gift. All you have to do is accept His gift that has no cost. Call upon His name and be saved (Romans 10:9). You are an imperfect person loved by a perfect God.
