Merry Christmas to you, and happy holidays from my family to yours this wonderful winter day in Minnesota. Here is a message I have for you:
If you are a sinner, I have Good News! You already understand your sinfulness before your righteous God and Creator, and that you have nothing that you can offer in exchange for seeking His forgiveness. God has seen the world's most pressing problem – the sinfulness of man. And He did something about it. He sent His one and only Son, Jesus the Messiah to pay the price for the world's sins. He alone is Savior of man's sinfulness (Acts 4:12). What does it mean that Jesus is our "Savior"? There are three things Jesus saves us from by His death on the Cross:
- He saved you from God's anger caused by your sins. God will not punish or condemn you if you have made Jesus your Savior, and trust that He fully paid the price for any sin or pain in your life; God does not punish the same sin twice – and He has punished our sins through Jesus' death on the Cross;
- Jesus saved you from death. By Jesus' resurrection, Jesus has overcome the grave. Because He was resurrected, we also have this promise of one day being resurrected and spending our remaining days with God in heaven (1 Corinthians 15:50-53);
- Jesus saved you from being trapped in sin. Jesus has freed His followers not only from the consequences of sin, but also the hold of sin. Sin no longer has the attractiveness it once did for those who have made Jesus their Savior.
And so, if you trust that God sent Jesus to pay the price for your sins on the Cross, and repent from living your life without God (Acts 3:19), His promise is that you are forgiven and that you will now have a relationship with God, the Creator of the universe. Is this a cool idea or what! This is amazingly Good News for those who will accept it.
But for the other 99% of you, there is Bad News. If you consider yourself as not being a sinner, I am sorry to tell you that there is bad news. There cannot be Good News, without there also being bad news. You are ensnared in a sin called self-righteousness which causes you to be blind to the things of God. If you think that you do not sin, this means that you do not understand your place in the universe. You do not understand that before a holy God, you are judged and condemned. And this means that God's anger and wrath remain upon you, because you have rejected Jesus. God's anger is upon those who sin (Psalm 5:4-6). You see, only those who understand their sinfulness can be saved by Jesus, and if you think you have no sin, Jesus cannot save you . As God's Word describes this, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." (John 3:36). What does it mean that by rejecting Jesus "God's wrath" remains upon a person? It means that if this state continues until the day you die, and who of us is guaranteed to live 10 years from now, let alone until tomorrow, then you will die in your sins. And so, God's anger and wrath at how you have harmed yourself with sin, as well as your actions against others that you have hurt, by the self-centered life you have lived without God in it, must be accounted for because God is a God of Justice. And this will result with the unrepentant life ending in a place described as "hell", eternally separated from God. Hell is a place where perfect justice is meted out, and who of us can say that we do not deserve some amount of punishment for the lives that we have lived while on earth? This is the Bad News of a life without Christ – God's wrath rests upon you, and will rest upon you for eternity.
That is why I am writing to you today – please turn from living a life without God in it. It is the most important decision you will make in this life. God bless you. /s/Tom.
6 comments:
To whom does God confess His sins? Where does He seek redemption? Why has He not asked YOU for forgiveness? What has He done to deserve your presence at His table? When will He ever live up to the demands he places on us?
~E~
Ed,
I would tread lightly here. What you just said here is called "blasphemy", a very serious sin. It is a violation of one of 10 Commandments, again a very serious sin.
When you say that God sins you are showing that you have no fear of God.
God does not sin. I know that you feel the starving children in the world is a tragedy. But please do not mock God, by saying that He has sinned or that He needs to confess His sins. I apologise that I have not directly addressed your question on why God allows suffering and tragedies in the world with a post devoted to this topic. But I hope I can address your question about why God allows tragedy and suffering, sometime in the next week.
Good point, though sometimes it's hard to arrive to definite conclusions
Hi - I am really delighted to find this. Good job!
hello to every one - hope yous had a nice one - pity we didnt get snow was all prepared wi sledges kids loving it any ways , all the best for 2012 -
micky b
The complete number of query to be tried is hundred.
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