Why Christianity?

Satan has a bitter hatred for and rivalry with God. His hatred extends to all of God’s allies whether they are angelic or human. He understands that warfare is a game of numbers and will do anything to remove his enemies from the battlefield. The strategy is always the same for Satan’s nature is one of darkness. The strategy of darkness is fear, uncertainty, doubt, and chaos. The tactics vary as the effort expended on the believer who is educated and prepared is necessarily more than that needed to affect a new believer. The new believer is effectively unarmed until they have practiced their faith through the reading of scriptures lessons, prayerful communication, and quiet meditation on His Word. The seasoned Christian who has engaged in these practices enjoys the faith and trust that is based on the experience of a strong personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. The new believer who has not yet lived through these experiences that build relationships require a blind trust based on promises written on paper that may yet be written on the heart. What follows are a few words that, if held firmly, will help the young believer understand the most basic principles of faith and salvation.

John tells us what he knew without doubt.

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1 John 5:11-12

John knew that Jesus was the Son of God and that for anyone to have eternal life, they too would have to believe this before they could know it. John said the reason he wrote his gospel was to convince people that Jesus was the Christ so that they could believe in Him and gain eternal life. [ John 20:31 ] Yahweh IS love. He relates with the love of a perfect father. A perfect father rewards excellence and punishes when correction is needed. God has charted a course by which people can live a life of joy and happiness in God’s blessings. But people seem to always want to decide for themselves what will bring them joy and happiness even when it is the exact opposite of what God says. When Adam and Eve did this, the result was that as long as they or their offspring failed to live their life in perfect accord with God’s will, they would not be allowed into God’s presence as Adam and Eve were in the first days. [ Isaiah 59:2 ]

God never intended that what He created for His pleasure would be denied Him so He had a plan to reclaim anyone who wanted to be reclaimed. Mankind was so far lost that they were beyond being able to correct all the things in their lives that are wrong. Because a human had caused separation between God and human by sinning even once, only a human could restore the relationship by going through their entire life without sinning even once. And just as Adam represented the estrangement of all mankind, God’s Son would represent the reconciliation of all mankind. Finally, all mankind had an alternative to separation from God. Now people can do nothing and remain in the separated state of Adam, OR each person can choose to participate in the life of unity that Jesus accomplished. However, just as God didn’t interfere in Adam’s ability to exercise free will to sin, He does not interfere in our ability to remain separated. Life is offered and life must be consciously chosen. If you had no choice then you might wonder if God might change His mind. God not only provides salvation from eternal separation, but as a sign of love and honor, He offers it as a partnership, not a decree. The partnership is free, all you need to do is understand how it works and agree that you want to participate.

• What is life?
  • It is existence in God’s presence. On earth, we can exist in God’s partial or obscured presence but we will cease to exist on this plane at some point.
  • It is existence in God’s presence. On earth, we can exist in God’s partial or obscured presence but we will cease to exist on this plane at some point.
• What is eternal life?
  • When we cease to exist on earth, we will continue to exist in another plane. There are two planes of existence available when we leave this earth. One is fully in the presence of God and one is utterly and completely empty of God.
• What occurs due to sinfulness?
  • We are separated from living in His presence and we struggle to hear Him. The more sinful we are, the farther we away we become and the harder it is to hear Him.
• Why do human efforts always fail to restore us to right standing with God so that we can live in His presence?
  • God is holy which means He is different. He is pure, unadulterated love and all that entails such as wisdom, mercy, and justice. If any sinfulness was allowed in His presence, He would no longer be pure. This cannot happen because He is incorruptible. Mankind if obviously no pure, unadulterated love because we sin and even if we had the smallest thought of sinning the smallest sin imaginable, we would be unfit to be in God’s presence. Maybe it’s a good thing that we could not live a sinless life or we would like decide that we are as good as God. And if we are as good as God, why would we need Him? And if we don’t need Him, why would we wish to live in relationship with Him which would lead us to an eternity apart from Him when we died. Sadly, this is what many people and fallen angels have thought. So it is impossible for mankind to save ourselves even if we could live a sinless life (which we can’t).
• What did God do to fix what mankind could not fix?
  • Mankind (Adam & Eve) caused the separation from God so it must be mankind who makes things right. But we know that is impossible. It would take:
    1. A human
    2. Who could live their entire life without sin
    3. Who could maintain a strong relationship with God the Creator
  • If the solution requires a man doing what only God can do, then the solution is both God and man in one. A man born human in every way such that he would face all the same issues and trials (and more) that we face but with the spiritual clarity that comes from perfect unity with the Father. This doesn’t mean there was a spiritual free ride. Jesus got to exercise free will as do all people and He did so by choosing to spend as much time as possible reading scripture, praying, and meditating. He had access to God but the human need to capitalize on that access Himself. Anything less than fully human and Satan would have been able to accuse God of cheating.
• How do you get access to participate in the salvation that God has provided?
  • First, to be very clear, the gift of salvation is exactly that…a gift. Humanity cannot achieve the perfection required for salvation so there is absolutely nothing we can do, buy, or donate that will get us in a condition suitable for God’s presence. Being a good person is a wonderful thing and it is a meaningful gift to society but even the best person has sinned and it only takes one sin to make you too contaminated for God’s holy presence. Which brings us to the second point of clarification. Existing in a place that is utterly and completely empty of God’s presence is existing in the place we call Hell. The gift of salvation is God’s offer to you that you that He will look at the sin that would keep you from His presence but allow you to assume the sinlessness of Jesus’ life instead. It is a gift that costs nothing but does require that you exercise your free will to choose to accept this gift. The free will choice is to receive Christ. There are two groups of people in this world: sons of man and sons of God. Sonship is a role, not a person. In scripture, when god refers to a prophet as Son of Man, he is calling that prophet the representative of the unsaved mankind. The son is the inheritor of the father. The father of the son of mankind is Satan so the son of man inherits Hell. The father of the son of God is Yahweh so the son of God inherits Heaven. When we receive Christ we receive the authority to be sons of God. Remembering that sonship is a role, we who accept God’s offer of salvation are equipped and able to follow God’s ways instead of our own.
• What does it mean to receive Christ?
  • The word receive is important because that is what we do with gifts. We receive them or we refuse them. As with all gifts, sometimes we receive them and never use them even though as the recipient we are fully authorized to use it. God offers the gift of His Son’s perfect accomplishment to count toward us. We choose to accept it or not. If we receive the gift, we can avoid Hell. If we do not receive it, then Hell is unavoidable.
• How do you receive the gift of salvation?
  • To receive a gift, you have to know it is being offered and you have to do something to indicate that you accept it. As with receiving a birthday gift, a person must acknowledge that the giver is presenting an offering and then accept ownership by receiving the gift into their hands. It is the same with the gift of salvation. We must acknowledge that God offers the gift of our only means of salvation and then we must transfer ownership of that gift. Salvation is a little different in that you can usually see a birthday gift but the example becomes clearer if the birthday gift is a donation in your name to your favorite charity from the gift giver. In this case, you not only have to acknowledge and receive the gift but you have to believe that the giver actually gave the money and that the charity will use the money to your satisfaction. Now, realizing your birthday gift requires faith, the analogy is closer to showing us how we can receive the gift of salvation. There are three basic steps:
    1. Hear the word of God to learn that salvation is necessary and available.
       • This means actively listening with an open mind and open heart. Hearing but dismissing without consideration is fruitless.
    2. Believe that what God says about salvation is true and that He can and will do as He promises.
       • God promises much but the greatest promise is that if you choose to accept this gift, you will be His. Not in the sense that He owns you because you will always retain your free will but in the sense that you are a member of His household. Because you share the same spiritual father, you are the brother or sister of Jesus. You are His because you are in His family. Since you are His, He promises that you can be in Heaven where He is for all eternity. He also promises that no one else can take that away from you.
    3. Acknowledge and receive the gift of salvation to transfer ownership.
       • Acknowledgment can come in many forms but there are a couple of points that are critical to know and understand. The first is that God knows your heart. It is the first layer of your being that He encounters when He deals with the son of man. If a person acknowledges with just his words, then the words are empty. A person must acknowledge in truth, meaning it intentionally from the heart.
• What happens when we hear and believe? [ John 5:24 ]
  • When we hear the message of Christ’s love and redemption and believe that God raised Him up from being dead because Satan had no legal right to hold Him, we are immediately granted the same right to life that Jesus earned. If Satan says this one should die and pass into Hell, Jesus says, “No, this one is mine.”. and passes from earthly life to heavenly life. This is possible because the other thing that happens is that you do not come into judgment. The sinlessness of Jesus is applied to you so there is no sin that warrants being sent to Hell.
• For how long does this promise of Jesus hold true? [ John 10:27-29 ]
  • Jesus said my sheep hear my voice and they follow me and I know them. If you hear Him and you choose to follow Him, then Jesus acknowledges that relationship and participates fully in that relationship by saying, “I know them.”. This is not a temporary thing or based on how well you live the Christian lifestyle. Jesus says that you get continual life, you will not die. This does not say that you will never cease to exist on this earth but it does mean that when we cease to exist in our present state we still are permitted to exist in God’s presence (the definition of life). So we don not die but pass from one form of life on earth to another form of life in Heaven. And no other person, not even Satan, can change that on you.
• How is this possible when the rule says that man is fallen and belongs under the rule of Satan?
  • It is true, the default is that man is under condemnation but the apostle Paul tells us that Satan only has the rights to people if they remain in the earthly state in which they were born. So if that person no longer exists then Satan can’t rule over then any longer. This is possible because when we are saved we are no longer the same person. Everyone is born with a physical body. We also have a soul “body” of mind and emotion that, even though you can’t see it, could be defined as uniquely you. Beyond that we have a spiritual body that is above the soul body. Just as the soul interacts with and responds to the physical body’s natural environment, it also interacts and responds to the spirit’s natural environment. When we accept Christ, we are fundamentally changed into a new person by virtue of the fact that highest level identifier, our spirit, is born of our spiritual Father. The old person that Satan owned disappears and a new person is found in its place…our saved self.