Thank You!!!

Today, December 23, 2008, marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of 360.yahoo.com/idog96. I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have taken time out of your busy schedules to drop in and read whatever it is that has been on my mind. I hope that what I have been blessed by God to share with all of you has encouraged you, answered some questions, planted a seed, stirred you to deeper study and most of all revealed to you the grace of God, the finished work of Jesus Christ and His resurrected life in you. As I have said in various ways, the only thing that matters in this life is being born again of the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only way to the Father in Heaven. He has done all the work for you. All He asks is "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)."

If you're tired of trying to fill that emptiness in your soul, tired of bouncing from church to church and from religion to religion, tired of not being able to explain all the suffering in the world, tired of searching for why you are here and what this life is all about, then it is time for you to come to Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ who, as God in the flesh, came to this world to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. He came to take the penalty for the sins that separated you from God, so that, raised from the dead, He can indwell you for all eternity. If you haven't taken that step of faith, I encourage you to do so at this moment. If you are not ready to do so, I encourage you take the opportunity to investigate the claims of Christ. What do you have to lose? God will lead you to the answers you seek that He has already revealed to the world. Wherever you are in your life, an unbeliever, a Christian stuck in religion, not quite sure what you believe, someone trying to find the right "path" to God through various religious and spiritual pursuits, an atheist, and so on, God is ready to meet you right where you are. Have you had a bad Christian experience? Were you chewed up and spit out by religion? Are you currently trying to dedicate yourself to a religion, Christian or otherwise, that seems to have never-ending or ever-more difficult rules to follow? Do you feel you are a good person and have done enough to please God, whoever God may be? Do you see people of faith, and religion, as a "crutch" for weak-minded people? Are you always chasing after the next high only to find out when you experience it, you need more? Then you need Jesus Christ! Even if nothing I have said seems to fit you, you still need Jesus Christ.

Ask yourself one question: "What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?"

If you don't know, and you claim to be a Christian, you may want to examine what it is you have put faith in. If you are not a Christian, how can you not accept what Jesus Christ is offering if you don't know what it is He offers? Maybe you've heard Christians exclaim, "Jesus is the answer!" But, you have thought to yourself,"What is the question?" Maybe you are one who sees Jesus as just another good example to follow like other religious icons. If so, how do you stack up? Have you lived a perfect and sinless life in thought, deed and speech? Have you walked on water? When was the last time you raised someone from the dead? I used to drink, but never met anyone who turned water to wine? Have you? The list is endless. Nobody can live up to the standard of perfection God requires. Jesus Himself said what God requires of us. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48)." Sobering isn't it? If our only hope of getting to heaven is to be as perfect as God, from birth to death, than nobody is in Heaven. And you know what? That is exactly what God wants you to know. No matter how hard you try, no matter how good you believe yourself to be, you will not do enough or be good enough to enter heaven. Why? Because you are spiritually dead to God without His life indwelling you. Thus, we arrive at the Gospel and why we need Jesus.

When God created Adam he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7)." The "breath of life" is the very life of God Himself. Man was created for God to be his life. But then something happened. God told Adam to eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:17)." We all know that Adam ate from the tree, but went on to live for 930 years. So, what kind of death, if any, did Adam suffer? Adam died spiritually. The life of God, breathed into Adam at creation, was removed from Him and he died. Adam was created in the image of God. However, the rest of mankind is born in the image of Adam, "in his own likeness, after his image (Genesis 5:4)," spiritually dead to God, but alive to the world.

In order for God to restore His life to us, it will be necessary for God to save us from our condition of spiritual death. And the only hope that we have if we are to experience a relationship with God is for Him to initiate and establish a relationship with us. He is God, and He gets to decide how and when He will accomplish this. God personally presented Himself as Jesus Christ to be our savior. God manifested in the flesh and dwelt among us to resolve the sin and the spiritual death issue. It is in this context that Jesus is referred to as the Savior, and as the Messiah.

The good news of Jesus the Messiah, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that Jesus died for the sins of humanity, the unbelief in God that everyone had that was expressed in their attitudes and actions; and as a result of the forgiveness that would be executed, He would make His Spirit available again, offered as a free gift to anyone who would receive it, such that the life of God that we had lost through Adam could be restored to us again. Jesus died once and for all, taking away the sins of the world, so the sin issue would never again be an issue between man and God. And the Spirit of God is offered as a free gift. This is the life of God that was breathed into humanity at the time of creation, and there will never again be any sin that will cause this life to leave again, because Jesus died for all sin, the just for the unjust so that we could be reconciled to God. Therefore the life we have presented to us is an eternal life, an everlasting life, something that we can experience now and today, and will carry us into eternity even after our bodies physically die. If you want to experience this life may I suggest the following prayer:

Lord God, I need you. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for the forgiveness of my sins. I thank you for offering me your life, and I now accept your Spirit within me to raise me from the dead right now. Through your Holy Spirit within me, teach me about your love and grace, and about the new life that you have given to me. Begin the work of making me into the person that you want me to be.

If you have prayed this prayer, the living Christ has come to dwell within you forever and you have begun the great adventure for which you were created as a child of God.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." John 3:16-17

Amen!