Back To Basics, part 1

A little while back I felt an urgent need to share the Gospel on this page. I wanted to give you Jesus in a way that was simple enough to understand yet relevant to what anyone may be dealing with in life at the moment. I hope it worked, even if only one soul decided to surrender to Jesus.

A good preacher-friend of mine reminds me on a regular basis that Christians often make the mistake of leading people to Christ, getting them baptized, and then leaving them to fend for themselves, not helping them grow in their relationship with Jesus whatsoever. Gotta win more souls to the Lord. Can't be wasting time teaching people how to be Christians. They just need to know!

So, I decided to try to give some help to you new Christians, and some reminders to us seasoned ones. If anyone has something to add, please feel free to leave comments (I've been feeling a little unloved in comment world anyway). Most of the Scripture references I will use, at least for a while, will be from the book of Ephesians. If you have a Bible, this is a great time to open it to Ephesians 1. If you don't have a Bible, fear not. Just click here for Ephesians 1.

And we're off... like a herd of turtles!

Eph. 1:3-4 (NIV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

The first thing Paul is telling us in this passage is that God is our Father and the Father of Jesus, which makes Jesus our Big Brother. But not in the way most Americans think of "Big Brother," as though someone is always watching us, waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us. In John 12:47 Jesus said that he "did not come to judge the world, but to save it." That means that even though he is always watching us, he is not watching us for the purpose of punishing us. He "chose us" to be his people and to live in a way that glorifies him before the world was even created. Before there was even an earth, he chose his teammates, and we get to be on his team!

Paul also said we have been called to live the way Jesus lived, "holy and blameless." To be holy means to be set apart for God's special purpose. When we are set apart for what God has in store for us, we give up our old way of life. We give up our old thought patterns, our old bad habits, our old way of treating people badly, our old selfishness, our old greed, our old pride, our old self and accept the new thoughts, habits, attitude toward people, selflessness, charitable, humble self that God has been so gracious to give us.

When we truly give up the old and accept the new, we get the honor of standing "blameless" before God who loves us unconditionally. John 16:33 says that we will have trouble as Christians. Becoming a Christian doesn't mean life will get easier or that you will get rich or that you won't get sick or anything of the sort. It means that life is going to be difficult, but we have the promise of eternal life with God, in complete love and fellowship with him for eternity. This life will be tough. The Christian life will be tougher. But everlasting Life trumps the worst situation anyone could ever even imagine! And for those who stand "blameless" by the grace of God, we will experience that Life!!!

How's that for hope?

Peace, Love, and Chocolate