Good News

OK, as promised I am going to take a little bit of time and try to explain how to enter the Kingdom of God. I guess that sounds a little churchy. Let me try to put it a different way. The object of this post is to help you understand how you can become a Christian. I will try to highlight some of the benefits of Christianity and also make clear what our obligations are. Fair enough? I'll also try to do all of that without using "Christianese." So here we go.

The first thing that an individual has to understand before the Good News will make sense is that there is actually some bad news that I have to tell you. The bad news is that we are born into this world in a state that is separated from God. It all goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam (not Eve) chose to disobey God's only command to him. Ever since then Adam and his descendants have pretty well not been able to avoid disobeying God. This was the case even before God gave His law to Moses. The general idea was that if you wanted to be acceptable before God you would have to obey every law that God had given through Moses PERFECTLY. The chances are that you broke one of those laws before you were even old enough to understand them all. I doubt that I have to convince you that you are not perfect, most people that I know are all too aware of their shortcomings, but just in case you aren't let me run down the Top Ten laws of God. Here they are:

1) Never make anything at all more important than God. Anything.
2) Never worship anything besides God. (That includes Muhammed, Krishna, Allah, Buddah, Zeus, Moroni, BMWs, sex, food... in short, ANYTHING. He REALLY hates second place.)
3) Never use His name irreverently.
4) Never work more than 6 days a week.
5) Respect, honor, and obey your parents. (Probably got you on that one.)
6) Don't murder people. (This includes hating people and not forgiving them.)
7) Don't engage in unauthorized sexual behavior. (Don't even look at someone lustfully or you have blown it.)
8) Don't steal. (Not even pens from work.)
9) Don't lie. (Not even little white ones.)
10) Don't be greedy. Don't be consumed by things that you cannot have.

That's a pretty tough list in and of itself. However, if you managed those, have you ever eaten pork, shrimp, or rare steak? If so, you have blown it. If you are male are you circumcised? Have you been to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the festivals of Passover, First Fruits, and Rosh Hashana? If not, you have already blown your chance to receive God's favor by your good deeds.

I think that is largely the point of the part of the Bible that we call the Old Testament. It gives us a set of laws and shows us how nobody back then managed to live them out perfectly. The point is that we can't make it on our own. Left to our own devices we will blow it every single time. The Bible tells us that the result of our imperfection is death. I don't have to tell you how true that is. Life is largely futile. There are spots of joy along the way. Every once in a while there is some happiness, but largely everything on this Earth is in a state of decay. We see it all around us.

There is even more bad news. When our bodies finally die that isn't the end. Left in our imperfect state there is additional torment awaiting for us after we die. This is just a terrible state, but it is the state that all of us are in until something is done about it. Now let's get to the good news part.

Now we know some things about God. He is all powerful. He is all knowing. He is everywhere. He is love. He is just. He is merciful. He is GOOD.

God made us to be good in the very beginning too. In fact, He liked us so much that He made us the spitting image of Himself. He made us so that we could hang out with Him and enjoy each other's company. It was a great arrangement. However, Adam's disobedience changed all of that. Let's consider why for a moment.

The Bible describes God as light and says that in Him is no darkness. Before Adam sinned, He had no problem at all being in God's presence, but the moment that he disobeyed, his first thought was to hide himself from God's presence. Imperfect people cannot tolerate a perfect God. This was a problem and God set Himself to fix it. He did that because He is loving. God could not simply ignore man's shortcoming. It was the shortcoming that was keeping man from God. The disobedience also demanded punishment. Because God was both merciful and just He allowed man to cover his sins by letting him use the physical death of an animal as a proxy to satisfy God's justice. This prevented God from inflicting the sentence of death as a punishment for man's sin. However, God was still not satisfied because the death of sheep and bulls and goats still didn't fix man's problem.

God had a greater plan. This plan is pretty shocking when you think about it. I cannot fathom why He did it. The only thing that I can figure is that He loves you and me deeper than I have ever loved anything. What God did was take the form of a man and live among us. He lived His life perfectly and never once broke His own law. Then He let us sacrifice Him. This, of course, killed Him. They buried Him and three days later He rose from the grave! His name is Jesus.

Because Jesus was willing to die as our proxy and because He was sinless, God has allowed anyone who would ask Him to let His sacrifice pay for their sins be made right with Him. Absolutely amazing. The good news doesn't end there. Jesus also promised us that if we believe in Him we never have to die. Granted our body may die one day, but like Jesus, we will also be raised from the dead, get a brand new perfect body and go to live with Him one day.

There's more too! Because we belong to Him, He begins the process of cleansing us from our old sinful and disobedient patterns and he begins repairing all of the damage that our disobedience did to our lives. He heals our emotional wounds. He gives us joy. He gives us hope. He provides for our needs. He gives us courage. And He makes us good. That is why I can contemplate the worst that the world has to offer and have a confidence that it is going to be OK.

Now, what does He say that He wants from us?

First of all, we have to realize that we can't make ourselves good enough for Him. We have to recognize that we absolutely must rely on Him to make us good enough to be with Him. That's where we ask Him to save us from our lifestyle that is leading us to death.

Secondly we have to ask Him to be our King. Here in America, we don't really understand Kings. We think we have a vote, but with Kings there is no vote. You do exactly what they tell you to do. I can understand why this might be difficult for some folks. See, we were all serving another king when we first found out about God's offer. That other king is the devil. He is the one who has been doing his best to destroy us. So our only experience with an absolute ruler has been a bad one. Let me assure you that God is a good and benevolent King. He wants what is best for you at all times. There may be times when it doesn't feel that way, but trust me, it is all for your good.

Finally, we have to believe that God raised Himself from the grave. I have grown up hearing this since I was a child, so belief in it wasn't too bad for me, but if this is new to you it may take some processing to actually believe it. That's OK. He understands how hard that could be to believe, and if you will be honest with Him, He will be very patient with you and will help you to believe it for yourself.

If you do those three things your life will be unmistakably changed for the best, and you will wonder how on earth you ever made it before you found out about the plan that God has for your good! It isn't always an easy road. It is a road that is full of adventure and danger and excitement. There are many difficult challenges along the way, but it is absolutely worth it.

I hope that this little post has helped you to understand what I have been talking about. If anything isn't clear, please post a comment, and I'll attempt to clarify. Also, if you are already a Christian and you see that I have forgotten something please feel free to post those comments too.