Believe!

Christianity assumes that each of the following is true:

God, a pure spirit, is creator of the universe.  That He spoke it into being from nothing (I must add here that science more-and-more appears to support this).

That God, while being one, is a Trinity made up of three separate and distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ, in his human form) and God the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is a Holy Spirit inspired Message from God.  That implies that the Biblical authors were led by the Spirit to deliver a message that they were given directly from God.  Exodus 24:4 says this, “And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.”  We believe that these “Words” were given to him by the third personage of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. This may seem insignificant when addressing the Gospels, which were written by either eyewitnesses to the life of Christ, or by historians who could speak directly with those eye witnesses (Luke, for example).  It is highly significant, when considering the book of Genesis. Genesis is thought to have been written by Moses; who, while he describes it, most certainly could not have been present at creation.  

The Bible contains a true account of God’s creation of man and His ongoing relationship with mankind … that is, with you and I. Highly significant to that relationship is His creation of the Jewish nation to be His own, and to serve as the lineage for his Son Jesus Christ, a rescue party, ultimately sent to save a human race that had fully alienated itself from God.

Man is a duality, consisting of a physical body that will flourish and inevitably die, and a spirit (soul) that is eternal. It is that spirit (our soul) which works beyond the known chemical and electrical functions of the human brain to provide our actual consciousness (the sense we have of self).

Man fell from a sinless state, because God created us with a free will, well knowing the danger that represented.

Jesus is the “Son of God”.  That He lived on earth as both God and man. That He (Jesus) was inserted into this world to create a means of reconciling sinful man to a Holy God.

Jesus walked this earth, was crucified and, most importantly, was raised from the dead and returned to God, His Father (without this resurrection, the Christian faith is worthless.)

Jesus and his apostles clearly and repeatedly have described the method by which we may choose to be reconciled to Him and His kingdom (again allowing us the exercise of free will, this time to acquire peace, love and safety).

The mechanism for our reconciliation with God is simply to believe that Christianity is true, to repent of (be earnestly sorry for) our sins and desire a new life as a member of God’s family (belonging to his kingdom).

Believers are nurtured and nudged by God the Holy Spirit, Who is a person of the Trinity.

The eternal soul of Christian believers will exist forever, in the presence of God himself.

The soul of non-believers is destined to eternal punishment, because of self centered, God effacing, disbelief.

Christianity, lived in a moment-by-moment fashion, guided by the Spirit and the examples found in His Word (the contents of the Bible) will result in a purposeful, peaceful, powerful, and meaningful life on this earth.  I believe we were made to live by God’s direction, and to do so is a “best fit” with the remainder of His creation.

The future, as described in the biblical book of Revelation, has been planned by God, will reward the soul of His believers, and is understood by few.  It is, however, all good for the believer. We need only to pursue the Christian life with complete trust for our immortal future.

To Continue, touch the number 4 below …