Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

Some people might be scared of accepting the free gift of eternal life in Heaven that Jesus offers us. This is in many ways a normal (but not a good) reaction - the fear of the unknown. You might wonder if there is a long list of things you need to do as a Christian, or other constraints upon your life.  To untangle all of these things, the main things you can do (that you maybe didn't do before) are to  read the Bible pray This is so you can get to know God better. But God won't strike you down if you don't do it.  This is for your benefit, not God's! In other words, God isn't improved by getting to know you - YOU are improved by getting to know God. You can find out more about that here . Those 2 things aren't so onerous, especially when you think about the fact that you probably like the idea of getting to know God better. Reading the Bible and praying are the best ways to do that. There's not really a bunch of obligations you need to do. Yes, you should ...

In the Bible, there were examples of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. The Pharisees of the time saw this as heretical because they had interpreted the keeping of the Sabbath to mean doing no work at all, even in the case of dealing with emergencies or healing. In this Bible verse, we will see an example of Jesus healing on the Sabbath and what ensued. We can see that the Pharisees clearly thought of this as Jesus trying to make an exception to the rules: He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharis...

...but the church is the bride of Christ. The reason I wanted to talk about this is that sometimes church can seem unnecessarily complicated. Usually, this is just us making it complicated for ourselves. Firstly, it's important to remember that the church is not God. Far from it. The church is a family of people, none of whom are perfect. That's to be expected, since we are all human and all sinners. So, we shouldn't be trying to worship the church itself, or get the church confused with God. The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints. Our worship should be directed only to God and Jesus. At the same time, the church is very dear to God. Of course it is: Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He surely wouldn't have died on the cross for our sins if he didn't care for us and was just ho-hum about the human race in general. Make no mistake: he didn't choose to die for us because of anything inherently good in ourselves, or because we in any w...

There are not so many song lyrics designed specifically for Palm Sunday.   Here are some lyrics especially for Palm Sunday which reflect the atmosphere of Lent instead of the post-resurrection feeling of Easter.   Feel free to use them, although you would need to set them to music.   Regardless of how you plan to use the lyrics, please do not acknowledge me; these lyrics are for God's glory alone. They came to Jerusalem And found a donkey Said "The Master needs it" And it was untied Cloaks and branches Of palm made a path For Jesus to ride on Through the crowd Did people know That it was to be This man, Son of God Here to save them Rejoice daughter of Zion Shout, shout, shout Daughter of Jerusalem Your king comes Righteous and victorious Humble and riding On the foal of a donkey Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord God Hosanna in the highest Pharisees didn't know Who Jesus was They asked for quiet Stones would have shouted ...

Who is God? This is one of the biggest questions anyone can ask.  So many people have preconceived notions of what God 'should' be like (and some get very confused when they find out that the Bible isn't in agreement with their personal prejudices!)  If you want to find out who God is, this is where I would really recommend trying the experiment of reading the Bible without any preconceived ideas.  God is our creator , as is made clear in Genesis.  He made not only us, but our world and our Universe. (Here people tend to get bogged down about evolution vs creationism - they are not mutually exclusive!) God is good (here people get bogged down about why bad things happen if God is good; read more here ).  God is all-knowing and all-powerful (yet again, people get bogged down about whether we actually have Free Will - yes we do; read about Free Will here ).  God hates sin , yet all of us humans are sinners.  Sin is just the most horrible thing ...

No, it is not possible to simultaneously be a Christian while following a different religion.  Why? Because Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God.  Other religions, even the Abrahamic faiths (Muslim and Jewish) who recognize Jesus existed as a person, do not believe he is the Son of God.  Since this is one of the tenets on which Christianity depends, it is impossible to reconcile these viewpoints.  If someone claims to believe another religion at the same time as Christianity, he or she cannot have truly examined the beliefs of Christianity.  However, we can still be respectful of other religions without believing in them.  So for example, a Christian may quite well respect their Hindu friends' beliefs, but that is not the same thing as believing in Hinduism. If we say we are Christian, we should make sure our beliefs match this.  For example, no-one who claims to be of the Christian religion should ever say 'Jesus was just a good p...

The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints All too frequently, organized religion (i.e. a church) can seem pointless and boring.  I certainly found it this way before I started reading the Bible.  Often, the lack of interest in church may be caused by one of two main things: 1. The person has had a bad experience previously in organized religion 2. The person feels uncomfortable about realizing that they are a sinner In the case of the first problem, it is quite possible that differences in Christian denominations has confused the person.  It is confusing!  It is important to go to a church whose teachings are in line with the Bible.  Identifying such a church oneself does require a) attending a church and b) reading the Bible. In the case of the second problem, that isn't actually a problem at all for attending church.  All of us are sinners.  It is as simple as that. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of G...