There’s one thing I have noticed. You keep interchanging the name “God”, with “Jesus”. You have talked about worshipping God then mentioned the importance of obeying Jesus. You’re confusing me.
Yes, we can easily get confused because we are natural beings trying to understand a supernatural being. God is the father, the creator of the world who decided to send us Jesus to save us from our sins. This is why Jesus is called God’s son.
But Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit are part of what is called a trinity. The Trinity. Like steam, ice and water, they are three in one. You wouldn’t drink a hot cup of steam at breakfast, but the steam was formed from the water and if there is enough of it, you will eventually get water droplets forming from it. You wouldn’t put ice cubes in your hot water bottle, but if you remove them and put them into microwave, your bottle is ready to warm your bed. In winter, if a child looked out the window and saw 6 feet of water, it would be a disaster because that’s a flood. But if that water froze and became snow, it would be exciting and you bet that kid is in the garage before breakfast, hunting for the sledge.
Don’t get hung up on it too much. We have God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In addition to this, there are many religions who claim to worship God. But they deny the deity of Jesus and therefore do not worship God at all. They just think they do. The religious leaders who crucified Jesus fell into this category. They claimed to be godly, yet rejected his son who was sent to save their souls from Hell. They did not put into practice anything Jesus told them to do and did not heed to any of his wise advice.
You will notice a similarity with these types of people and the ones who crucified Jesus. Instead of acknowledging they were sinners who needed to be forgiven, they puffed themselves up with pride and wasted time picking fault with others. They performed pointless practices in order to try to win God’s favour and forced their congregations to do the same. They made people feel worthless and guilty and they incited them to hate all those who don’t follow their religion. Does that sound familiar with any religions that are around today?
So yes, Jesus was God’s son, but he is also God himself as part of the Trinity. He is Lord of all the earth and the God Christians serve is the true God who gave us Jesus.
Okay. So, how could a God who created the world become a baby?
Only God knows, but it really doesn’t matter. It was a miracle – one of many God has performed. Yes, it is right to question things in order to understand, but some things are beyond our total comprehension because we are trying to understand supernatural things with a natural mind. This is one reason why God gifted us the bible. Everything he wants us to know is explained in there and it also clearly states that we should not fall into the trap of getting all tangled up in pointless, religious arguments. People may misunderstand and say that when Christians say we believe by faith it is because we are making excuses for not being able to explain the unexplainable. However, nobody tells you that you are brainwashed because you believe in gravity, sound waves, or lightyears. People of scientific intellect have a certain understanding of those things, but even they are limited in their understanding because they didn’t create them and have no power to change them in any way.
If this Jesus is my Saviour, tell me more about what he was like, because I have heard a whole load of rumours…
Okay. Would you let your precious little boy get beaten-up by bullies?
Would you let them spread malicious lies about him to the headmaster?
When the bullies steal his lunch box, would you let him give them his bottle of drink too?
Of course not!
That is why many men are so confused about Jesus. Because they don’t know him, they think that the rumours about him turning the other cheek and dying innocently means he was a sissy.
Who wants a weakling as their hero?
You are just mis-informed.
He stood up for what was right and did not call for back-up. When he knew something was wrong, he didn’t get a gang together for support, but faced multitudes by himself. People had decided to desecrate the temple where he worshipped God, by turning it into a marketplace. While traders sold their wares to customers and buyers bargained for a great-value price on the goods before them, the desire for financial profit outweighed the necessity to remain respectful towards God’s sanctuary.
Jesus was having none of it and promptly grabbed the tables that were displaying goods and turned them over. He made a whip of cords and used it to drive out all the traders. He scattered the coins that had been earned that day, all over the floor and rebuked them sharply.
He made it quite clear that this irreverent behaviour was unacceptable.
When he was just a boy, he entered the place of worship that was dominated by men of strong opinions and he boldly taught them the meaning behind the words in the Bible. Most of them were double his age, yet their knowledge was far inferior to his.
When he stood before the official who had the earthly power to free him from torture and crucifixion, he courageously explained that the man was powerless to convict him and that he was surrendering to his enemies by his own power. Jesus told him that he was allowing himself to be murdered in order to save the world from their sins. He knew this would render another painful blow across his face, as angry men called him a blasphemer – a weak-willed man would shun violence to their body, but Jesus was the opposite. He was strong of mind, body and spirit.
When the devil appeared to him in the flesh and tempted him to disobey God’s commands, he reprimanded him instantly and put this arrogant being back in his place.
Jesus had the wisdom to know when to speak out boldly without fear and when to be silent in order to perform the greatest miracle that has ever occurred – salvation.
Jesus kept quiet in the presence of his accusers because if he performed a miracle at that stage, like killing his enemies as they deserved, or coming down from the cross to prove he is God, we would have never been granted the free gift of salvation which is our ‘stay out of Hell’ guarantee when we die.
Those images of a skinny-legged man in a loin cloth, turning up his eyes while strapped to a smooth piece of wood need to be eradicated from our minds.
Jesus was not a spineless guy who was ‘just too nice for his own good’. He was a well-built carpenter who had allowed himself to be beaten beyond recognition and then have his open wounds thrown against rough planks that would have been covered in protruding splinters. After his horrendous death, he is the only person who ever rose from the dead and remained living forever.
To have your heart re-started by a skilled, cardiac surgeon, is one thing. To come back to life after being severely tortured is another.
Anyone who has died and then been revived has died again at some point. But Jesus lives on forever. Death could not hold him down. He conquered death and has the power to give you eternal life.
Yes, Jesus stood up to the biggest bully, Satan, and won.
Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.
(Galatans 1:4 NLT)
