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...

I was reading in the news media about someone who had betrayed someone else. If I had been the victim, I confess I would have had difficulty with keeping my focus on the main thing (God and Jesus). It would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of bitterness and misery in that situation.  Even if I make a conscious effort to rise above the bitterness and misery to keep my focus on God and Jesus, I would still have not liked the person and would have avoided them. Which is OK! Christianity says you should forgive the person, but you need not continue any relationship with them (I talk more about that here ). Your forgiveness is in your heart, between you and God. There is no requirement for you to see the person again or for them to know of your forgiveness. You can cut off contact with them for the sake of your future physical and/or mental health, even if you have forgiven them. Forgiving someone for a specific past event does not equate to you needing to place any trust in...

I'm in the middle of reading the New Testament, and in the past I had never bothered to consider word choice. But this time around, I posed the question: Why did Jesus use the phrasings that He used? To get His meaning across in anything He said, He could have chosen between different phrasings. Yet He phrased it a certain way.  Of course, we should be cautious how much importance we put into this. After all, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. It was not written in English, so what I am reading in English is a translation. Inevitably, something winds up having to be approximated in a translation. Also, certain translations of the Bible are more focused on word for word while others are more focused on meaning for meaning.  If you are wondering about phrasing, then use a word for word translation (e.g. Good News Translation), since a meaning for meaning translation might wander further from the original words used. Nonetheless, it's still a fascinating exercise to ask w...

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...

If we read the Old Testament, we can see many examples of the Israelites disobeying God. God tells them not to do something, and they do it. Or He tells them to do something, and they don't do it. We feel like saying "Just listen to God!" It seems so simple to see what the right thing is to do. But we are also disobeying exactly as they are. Even if we don't have the voice of God speaking to us directly, or through the prophets, we still have the voice of God from the Bible. It makes it clear what God likes to see us do. Yet we too have the same struggles to do this. All too often we give into laziness or selfishness instead of doing what God wants.  This problem is expressed most clearly in the New Testament in Galatians: For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.  Galatians 5:17  If someone who wasn't human (for example, an...

In the book of Revelation, the Bible says that at the End of Days there will be a powerful beast which will rule the world: I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads. There were ten crowns on his horns. On each head was an evil name that was displeasing to God. The beast I saw looked like a leopard. But he had feet like a bear and a mouth like a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority. One of the beast's heads seemed to have had a deadly wound. But the wound had been healed. The whole world was amazed and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon, because he had given authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast. They asked, "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?"  Revelation 13:1-4 He opened his mouth to speak evil things against God. He told lies about God's character and about the place where God lives and about those who live in heaven with him. He was allowed to make war ...