Misconceptions - 6. Stuff people say about the Lord Jesus

1. Jesus didn't even exist


No serious historical scholar of any faith will deny that a man called Jesus of Nazareth existed. Roman historian Josephus and over 30 other non Biblical accounts suggest He existed also. The Gospel of Luke, which records some of His life, is one the most accurate historical records ever written.

2. Jesus was a criminal


Jesus was wrongly convicted of blasphemy by the religious leaders, who abused their power to meet their own ends. Jesus ministry was turning people away from their legalistic rituals and they obviously were deeply unsettled. Jesus, as God Himself in human form, had the power to get away but chose to die to pay the price for the sin of all mankind.

3. Jesus was just a good man


Make no mistakes, Jesus was a good man...He was perfect, He was the best man ever. But He was so much more than just good. He was God Himself in human form. He is the bridge between man and God. Our sin seperates us from God and we are condemned but Jesus stepped in and paid the price for it all so that we can have a relationship with God. Jesus also claimed to be God. A good man doesn't lie and if Jesus was just a good man then He was also a liar in a major way and led many people astray and to death (the Pharisees didn't stop their executions at Jesus, they executed His followers as well) for nothing, which doesn't make Him a good man.

4. Jesus was a madman
Jesus said some of the most incredible and insightful things ever said. His Words are not the words of a madman.

5. Jesus isn't for me


Luke 19:10
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."


No matter how far away you are, Jesus came to find you. If you feel an urge to be saved and change your life, just ask Him tonight to forgive your sin and help you repent. It is the best decision I ever made :-)

Jeremiah 29:13

Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.


Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.


I always find that my most amazing and special moments with God (Those moments mean I can never be an atheist just as much as I can never believe my Mother doesn't exist...I've met her!) come when I really make an effort for Him. Instead of during a rushed token gesture at the end of the day, it is the times where I go out and make time and get myself free of distractions when I have the best times. Of course, God meets you in the rushed times as well and there have been good times there too.


My point is...I have heard many complain that they never know that God is there for them and that they don't know what He thinks or wants them to do.


My advice is to make time, find a quiet place, remove all distractions and get in touch with the Creator :-)


Psalm 37:7
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.


Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Follow Easter!

The below link gives you a chance to have the Easter story sent to your Facebook, Twitter, mobile or e-mail in real time this Easter. I think it is a great chance to help myself meditate on this wonderful occasion and the day my eternity was paid for! Thank you Jesus :)

http://www.thepassionexperience.org.uk/site/

A message

I just want to put something out there. I have it so easy in my life...I have the money to get everything I need, I have wonderful, loving parents who encourage me in my faith, I have a job (a blessing in these times), I have some awesome Christian friends and some awesome non-Christian friends as well. I have a roof over my head. I  know where my next meal is coming from. Even though Christianity generally appears to be disliked in this country, I won't be killed or stopped from expressing my faith in this country.

I just to want to express my admiration for those who don't enjoy all or some of these privileges and yet still keep their faith and keep fighting the good fight :-) You truly are beautiful people and God is storing up much riches for you in Eternity.

2 Corinthians 4

Present Weakness and Resurrection Life

 ¹ Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ²Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

 ⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

 ¹³ It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

 ¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

0.00000000001 % of our lives are on Earth. God has an amazing thing in mind for the other 99.9999999%. Keep fighting the good fight, you are incredible & I love you all so much!

The way to success?

It's a important time of the year. Exams are coming up, essays are due, the football season is entering the final month! Just one extra bit of effort can make all the difference. The pressure is on, you feel as if life doesn't go beyond that final deadline. Everyone has their advice, their techniques to handling all of the work & pressure...it can feel as if there are so many different ways and you don't know which way to take so you sit there and hope that whatever you do end up doing, it is enough!


I'm not here to tell you which way is right when it comes to exam and essay work and I am no Jose Mourinho, so no football teams will be ringing me up for advice!


Whatever you do, however you do it....cover it in prayer. Soak it in it, don't let any part of this journey escape without being completely immersed in God.....


Why?


1. Because God wants to help
1 Peter 5:7 - Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.


God is our Heavenly Father, He doesn't want us to sit here and suffer, He wants to strengthen us and assure of us that He has a great plan for us and He will see us there! (Jeremiah 29:11 guys :D)


2. Because Jesus did it
Jesus constantly was in prayer, He made a point of going to the Father and spend hours at night with Him. The night before He was crucified, where was He? He was giving all of Himself to God, so that He would have the strength to do the Lord's Will. Jesus lived by prayer in His Ministry, this is shown in His healing of many illnesses and sending demons away from the possessed.


3. Because other Bible characters do it
In Nehemiah 1 & 2, Nehemiah's passionate prayer for Israel is noted as well as his prayer before responding to the King (he had a scary job, to ask a King who could kill him to let him re-build this wall in Jerusalem which he may not have been pleased about). Nehemiah went and re-built the wall under the blessing of God. Everything amazing that happened on Mt Carmel in 1 Kings 18 was due to God answering Elijah's prayer.
I believe, to change this world, we should concentrate more on prayer than actions, not that actions are not important...they often seem to be the response of prayer anyway. 


4. The Bible says so -  Phillippians 4:6-7....Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


Lastly, always remember this wonderful verse in Proverbs 16:3, the book of wisdom...


"Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
   and he will establish your plans."


God isn't blind to your suffering, He wants to hold your hand and get you through everything. Let Him in today. I have been realising more and more myself the power of prayer. God answers it so often, and when He doesn't you end up seeing why and being thankful! 


Give it all to Him today :-) 

Misconceptions - 5. Christianity is just a bunch of rules

Hello strangers, sorry I haven't posted for sometimes. With my exams life is very busy and the blog is taking a bit more of a back seat but I promise I haven't given up! If you have any more misconception ideas please let me know :-)


Anyhow, this is another moot issue for many people. I have seen people very attracted to Christianity over the years but put off by the idea that Christianity is just a load of rules that will stop them having fun in their lives.


Christianity isn't about people not having fun, Jesus states in John 10:10 that He came to give us life in all of its fullness.


It isn't about just obeying rules to please God. In Amos 5:21 God stated that He despised the religious feasts & assemblies of the Israelites because of their hypocrisy and attitude towards them. Jesus came and fulfilled this Old Testament law by living a perfect life and setting us free from it. Forgiveness and righteousness before God comes from accepting His Grace through Christ not through achieving a standard. Paul describes it best in Ephesians 2:8-9...


"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."


It is very sad to me that other faiths such as Islam try to achieve grace by works and don't even know whether they have done enough or not until they die. As Christians, we can know our eternity right now.


Christianity is about relationship with the Father, God wants to know us and that is why He sent Jesus...to remove the barrier between us, sin.

Misconceptions - 4. God is Evil

When I am debating Atheists I find that, when you dispelled all of their 'scientific' reasons why God doesn't exist (one such  reason being Evolution) they turn to the character of God & why suffering happens. Whilst I covered suffering a few weeks ago twice. I haven't covered the strange Atheist argument that God is Evil.

This opinion is most famously expressed by Richard Dawkins in his widely seeling book 'The God Delusion':-


'the God of the Old Testament is...petty, unjust, vindictive, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal...'


My first thought on reading it this is that Dawkins has clearly not read the Bible! I think this quote pleases Atheists and riles Christians not because it is true, but because it is a blatant lie being propagated as truth.

Rabbi Moshe Averick (a Jewish rabbi would know the Old Testament very well) in his new book 'Nonsense of High Order' responds to this as such:-

'Can an intellectually honest and open minded person ignore the fact that this same deity commands the Israelites not to take revenge or bear a grudge, to view the use of inaccurate weights in business as an abomination, to view all human beings as created in the image of God, to open our hands wide to those in poverty, not to oppress the stranger who lives among us, to leave a portion of every field unharvested for the poor, never go to war against an enemy without first offering peace, that "justice, justice shall your pursue", to "love your neighbor as yourself"?


Atheists will bring up passages where God has commanded that certain acts will be condemned by death with some of them being seen as particularly harsh in today's world. But the problem for them is this:-

1. Context - what may be harsh today may have been perfectly reasonable when commanded. Also, Old Testament commandments were fulfilled in Jesus so that Grace comes by following Him not these laws. God knows the context of today too!
2. Morality - How can argue with God about His morality? HE invented morality!?! He invented Justice! You could say that instead you are arguing with Christians about God's morality, but the problem there is how you do account for the existence of morality without the existence of a higher power? No answer I have ever seen has been anywhere near satisfactory and often have Atheists declaring that rape etc. is okay if someone decides it is.
3. Attitude - the Israelites never just decided to kill off a group. The groups that were killed off were groups practicing child sacrifice and other detestable things which God hated and wanted gone.

Ephesians 2:4-5

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

1 John 4:10
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is not evil, He all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and all-amazing!