Today's my first day back in the office after three weeks away. I've needed the last three weeks to refocus and to rest, though the last week of that was Impact Training at Elvenden Forest Centre Parcs, near Norwich, England, but instead of writing about my life and what's been happening, I thought I'd share something of a revelation with you... its something that I've been thinking about for a while and I think its about time I share it with you all.
Over the last few weeks I've had time to reflect on my walk with God and what it means, for me, to be called a Christian. More than that, what it means for me to be a radical Christian. So often people look at Christianity as a religion full of rules and regulations... with endless lists of things we have to do, and even longer lists of things we are not allowed to do. If we break so much as one of these rules, we're bad people and we won't go to heaven. Let's face it, we're all bad people, no matter what we believe in. Every human that has ever walked this earth and will ever walk this earth is bad, has evil in them, with one exception, Jesus. No matter how hard we try to do good, we fail miserably. As Romans 3:22-23 says: "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." There is nothing we can do, there is no hope to gain entry into heaven without Jesus.
God wanted and still wants a relationship with us... but when Adam and Eve sinned (in Genesis 3), the telephone connection dropped... then throughout the Old Testament we see God making temporary fix to the telephone line. This is why Leviticus is my favourite book in the bible. God put the rules into place to purify the people of Israel, so they could have a relationship with Him. In a way, it was a prelude to the Salvation Story. Every year, since the Israelites left Egypt they had to kill a lamb without defect or blemish on Passover as an atonement offering. Jesus became that lamb. Jesus is the only one who has ever walked this earth who is without sin. Yet, he took all the sins of mankind for past, present and future generations, onto himself so that the telephone line between us and God could be restored. We don't deserve this, and no matter what we do, we can't earn salvation, all we need to do is choose to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and ask him into our hearts. To ask for our sins to be washed away... and then the telephone line to Father God is opened for us.
I'm going to end this post with what Paul writes in his second letter to Timothy (chapter 1 verse 9) which says: "God saved us and chose us to be his holy people. We did nothing to deserve this, but God planned it because he is so kind. Even before time began, God planned for Christ Jesus to show kindness to us." God is the definition of kindness and he wants nothing more than for us to know this and to know that he has chosen us as his children, not because of what we've done, but simply because he wants to have a relationship with us.