Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

After Jesus died on the cross and before He rose again, what might it have felt like to the women such as Mary his mother, and his disciples? This year at Easter I pondered this question.  The women went to the tomb early in the morning with the intent of preparing the body for burial. As they went, was there any doubt creeping into their heads about Jesus? If I was one of them, I would have surely been tempted to wonder if He was really the son of God. If He was killed, what was the point of this?  Of course, his mother Mary had the advantage of knowing the entire time that Jesus truly was the son of God - an angel had come to her to tell her when she was pregnant. An angel had visited her husband Joseph too, to give him the same information. But even knowing that Jesus was the son of God, did Mary wonder at any point whether God's plan had gone awry somewhere at the end? Or was she confident about the way things happened? And how about the disciples? The disciples had seen m...

Some people think that Jesus is just for certain people but not for them. Nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus came for all people. No-one is beyond salvation, no matter what they have said and done in the past, no matter their social standing, no matter how disliked or well-liked they are by others. If they believe in Jesus and repent of their sins, they are saved. Here are some verses that prove that Jesus came for all people . Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. Isaiah 56:8 The above verse shows that even those who might consider themselves outcasts, or those who others might consider outcasts, are still gathered to God. Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me...

Doomsday bunkers will not protect anyone at the End of Days. Between now and the End of Days, there will be natural disasters, war, and other horrible things. Although doomsday bunkers will exist, they certainly won't protect anyone from the End of Days. Two prophets in the Bible have clearly prophesied about people hiding underground at the End of Days. Let's take a look at these two different readings from the Bible. One is from the prophet Isaiah, before the birth of Jesus, and the other is from the prophet John of Patmos, in the book of Revelation, the final chapter of the Bible. These different prophets from distinctly different time periods both have the same message for us: Enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground, from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. On that day people will throw away to the moles and to the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for th...

Lately, I found myself wondering exactly what I would say to a close friend if I was to explain what the Christian beliefs are.  It is actually pretty simple to explain. God the Creator God is the creator, and created everything in the universe. He also created Heaven. Heaven is a real place, a place of happiness where there is no sickness and no death. The one thing that can separate us from God There is only one thing that can separate us from God: sin. Sin is when we do bad things. God hates sin (he does not hate us , he hates our sin) and does not want to be around it. This is a problem for us, because we all have a sin nature. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, fell into the temptation of sin. We all have that same nature, so we all sin, even though we try to be good. None of us are perfect. None of us can meet God's standards. A path for us to be saved While this sounds like quite a hopeless situation, it's not, thanks to God. This is why: God made a way fo...

I mentioned in a previous post how initially as a Christian I was rather grudging about prayer, and considered it more of a duty than anything I would willingly do. But, reading the Bible and praying and getting to know God better definitely had results that completely changed me! One Easter I realized I had changed a lot as a person: I was happy to take a 1-hour shift of prayer at Easter Vigil at the church ( you can read about that here ). This Easter, I'm looking forward again to praying - another reminder that I have changed so much. Some relatives of ours are going on a fun vacation over Easter. In the past, I probably would have felt rather jealous that they are going on vacation while we are not going anywhere. But actually I didn't feel the slightest bit jealous this year. Because I knew that I wanted to pray at Easter Vigil. I feel that Easter is the part of the year where there is a lot of spiritual danger in the world. I wanted to pray, mainly to be thankful and pr...

On Good Friday this year, I decided that, in keeping with this somber day, I should deny myself some things on this particular day.  These are very small sacrifices, but they were something I felt I wanted to do. My sacrifices were: No coffee and no drinks other than water No snacks Simple meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner, little to no meat. Do not  check email or go on the computer or other device whenever I feel like it.  Limit device-checking to certain intervals during the day, with at least a few hours between times. Actually, of these, only the first 3 actually felt like sacrifices of any sort.  The fourth one gave me abundantly more useful time in my day! It turned out to be a benefit, not a sacrifice.  I'll be implementing this rule most days from now on! The other thing I did that made Good Friday special for me (but was not a sacrifice to me) was to participate in the church's Easter Vigil.  This involved spending an hour ...