What it means to be a Christian (Part 1 of 3)
God is three persons in one – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He created the world.
Genesis 1:1
John 1:1
When God made the world he made it good. There were no blemishes but something changed when he made the first two human beings, Adam and Eve. God clearly gave them an instruction. They could eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate of that tree they would die.
Genesis 2:15
Adam and Eve were given a choice: to obey what God said, or not. They lived in a perfect world but they chose to disobey God and to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As soon as they had eaten the forbidden fruit they knew that they had done something wrong. Their eyes were opened and they felt guilty. All the problems in this world stem back to this act of disobedience.
Genesis 3:6
We are all now born with a nature that can’t help but disobey God. It is a sin nature. You don’t have to teach a child to go wrong, they automatically do it. But ever since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God, God had been organising a solution to the problem of our sin nature. Unless we are set free from sin we can’t escape it. We always feel guilty for what we do wrong.
God is omnipotent – all powerful, and he is omnipresent – everywhere. He even named and numbered the stars. Even though he created and controls the whole world he is still very concerned about every single person.
Acts 17:24
Psalm 139:7
Psalm 147:4
1 Timothy 1:17
God is holy and nothing imperfect can be in his prescence. That is why there needs to be a solution to our sin. If God does not change our sin nature when we die we will go to hell and be separated from Him forever. Sin makes us unclean on the inside. Sin blocks our relationship with God. We try to amend our ways; we try and get it right but inside our sin nature takes our thoughts the wrong way.
God intended that that power of sin would be removed. God’s solution was for his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross taking into himself your sin and my sin. When his life was broken, the power of sin in us was broken. He took it out of you into himself. This gives us new life. Life can be like it was way back in the Garden of Eden where you think clean and where you can live a life that is pleasing to God. That power that was taking you the wrong way no longer has a hold on you and you have the opportunity day by day to live right. It’s a totally different existence from when you were born.
Continued on 18/10/08
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