Wednesday 20 August 2014

What is being 'Christian' all about?

"Now that's a very good question," I thought to myself as I struggled to find a reasonable answer and, reasonable or not, I gave one anyway - and this is how it goes:

"In my book Christians are people who, recognising the distance between them and God, are rather grateful that Jesus popped in and did the 'cross thing' because that (the 'cross thing') plays an important part in removing the distance and reconciling us to God.

Not only that but Jesus (whose job title in this role is 'The Christ*') having died pops over to hell (which because we use the term 'descends' must, I guess, be located in a downwards direction) and kindly points out to the bloke what runs the place (hereinafter refereed to satan (not Stan as my spellchecker sometimes suggests) that the only real power he has is death because this is the penalty for his (satan's) only product 'sin' and, having died and come back as alive, means that He (Jesus) has broken the only power he (satan) had.

Then, having come back from the dead he (Jesus) points out that when he broke death He did it for everyone - not en masse but in a one-for-one, real-time, act - so all you need to do is recognise who He is and What He did and (thanking Him) take a 'get out of sin free' card from Him (Jesus) and satan is stymied."

In a shorter form it goes like this:

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
John 3.16

So it's all very simple:

God and us were meant mates but became separated from each other because of sin

Jesus death on the cross breaks the power of sin (death) and restores the relationship between us and God

Accepting that Jesus, the Christ, has done all this and deciding to take the ticket from Him and live in the reality of forgiveness, eternal life and . . .

. . . Relationship with God through, for and with Him (Jesus)



That's what it's all about.

Can it get any simpler?

* Christ not being Jesus' name but a description of the role He occupies in that He, as the Son, comes to this world of ours as a man (that's a reference to His sex and to the fact that He is also human) as the 'anointed one of God' - He is God's solution to all the ills of the world basically.

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