First semester is over!

First off, hope s/e went well. Ours is next week and my fingers are a little sore from practicing all evening!!

Then, my main point. First off, Christianity isn’t really a “religion”, per se. It’s a faith in Jesus (more on that later) and a relationship with God. A religion is something that provides a moral code and makes you do works. Yes, Christians are good and have morals and all that, but that flows from the relationship with God and our love and adoration of Him. It’s not the main point of it, but a lot of peole think it is.

Second, you say that all religions are the same. Let’s think about that for a minute. The two main points of a religion or faith or cult or what-you-will (and Christianity is a faith, so it’s included in that group) is to provide a moral code and an idea on what will happen after you die and how you get to where you want to be. Most religions – Islam, Hinduism, Buddism, etc. – all preach, as you said, good works. You have to do stuff to get into Heaven, or to reach Nirvana, or whatever the term each one uses. You have to give money to the poor, pray daily, achieve your darma, whatever. Christianity teaches something so completely radical from that. According to the Christian faith, there is a Heaven, where God is, and a Hell, where Satan will be. God is perfect, holy, sinless, all-powerful, loving, merciful, just, righteous, etc. Humans are basically sinful. Our sinful nature seperates us from the holy majesty of God. He’s perfect, we’re not, we can’t be with Him. In fact, we deserve to die because we’ve sinned. But God made us and loves us and wants to be with us. So, He provides a way for us to come to Him. In Judaism, God (yeah, the same one. Christianity’s roots are in Judaism – Jesus was a Jew!) says that to appease His wrath and the Jews’ sins, they were to offer animal sacrifices. The sacrifices were to be flawless, and would take the sinner’s place. Remember, the sinner deserved to die, but the animal’s death was a substitute. Now, this system was not to be permanent, because God is just, so humanity wouldn’t get by with making animal sacrifices, justice had to be performed – the sinners had to die. But God loved us, and wanted to be with us in Heaven, not kill us. So, He sent His Son Jesus into the world. Jesus was fully man, but fully God. Because He was God, Jesus never sinned. He ministered to the Jews for about three years, teaching them about God and telling them who He was – the Son of God who had come to save the world. Then, the Jewish religious leaders crucified Him on a cross. But Jesus hadn’t done anything wrong, He didn’t deserve to die, so He took the sins of the world upon Him and was the perfect sacrifice, ending the sacrficial system. Three days after Jesus died, God brought Jesus back to life, and forty days later, Jesus acsended into Heaven. Now, while He was here on earth, Jesus told us the way to salvation. (Salvation from what, you might ask. Well, all non-believers will not be in Heaven, they’ll be in Hell.) He taught that whoever believes that He, Jesus, is the Son of God who came to the world to die as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, will, once that believer dies, go to Heaven and be with God for eternity. How does that work? Well, Jesus was perfect, so He died in our place. He was a substitute, and because He was perfect, He could be the substitute for all of humanity. So, acording to Christianity, believing in Jesus Christ is the way to salvation. Everyone else teaches that you have to do good things, and maybe you’ll be good enough to get in. Yeah, well, how good is good enough? How can you be sure you’re in? And wouldn’t people like Mother Theresea or the Catholic saints have blown the curve? Besides, people are sinful, depraved, and can never be good enough to make it to God. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!

Only God is. That’s why he died for you.