I take it that you are new to my blog if you are visiting this page. You may be wondering right now what my blog is even about or who this God that I am talking about even is. I want you to know you do not have to wonder about God anymore. You do not have to feel like He is this mysterious man up in the clouds or that He harbors ill will against you. Some of you may even feel like this “religion” thing is not for you. If you feel this way about religion, the cool thing is, I feel the exact same way that religion is not for me either. The God I know came to abolish man-made religious institutions and establish something far better. Everything about who God is, what Jesus came to do, and who we are starts with a story Christian’s call: the GOSPEL.
Take a few minutes to watch this video about the GOSPEL and I’ll help bring it all home for you.
I like to separate the Gospel story into four parts. The first part is separated in to what is most notably called “The Creation”. The second part is something called “The Fall of Man”. The third part is called “The Redemption”. Fourth, the last portion is called “The Restoration”.
The story starts at the beginning of creation When God first created the heavens and the earth. He created everything we see around us. On the seventh day, God wanted to create man so He could fellowship with him. God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and then formed Eve out of man’s rib. Adam and Eve were created as the first human beings to ever exist. God created them to enjoy fellowship with Him, free of knowing any evil (sin), in the Garden of Eden. Both Adam and Eve were created in the image of God Himself. We have subsequently inherited God’s image (human form – body, soul, spirit) because we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. For some time they enjoyed directly talking to and walking with God, here on earth, without there being any kind of evil in the world. The reality is, they literally were living in a perfect utopia with the God of the universe where they had eternal life with God.
Then one day, something changed. Satan (the devil) took on the form of a serpent and began to deceive (lie) to Eve – Adam’s wife. God had given only one command to Adam and Eve. They had free reign of everything in the garden except the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” God told them they were not allowed to eat the fruit on this tree for they would die if they did. Remember, they did not know death at this point. They were living as eternal beings. The serpent began to deceive Eve and told her to eat of the tree making her believe if she did so she would actually become just like God himself. Eve believed the lie and ate the fruit on the tree that God said not to eat.
Next, Eve convinces her husband, Adam, to eat the fruit as well. Adam listens to her and eats the fruit. The moment both of them had eaten the fruit together they realized they had disobeyed a direct command from God. That instant they realized their bodies were not covered with anything in the Garden. They fled to find some fig leaves to make clothes and tried to hide from God. They knew, after they had eaten the fruit, they had done something that was against God. This is what Christian’s call sin.
Anything that we do that is in direct violation with what God commands as good and holy, is sin. God lovingly found Adam and Eve in the garden hiding from Him. He asked them what they had done and they confessed they ate the fruit. At this point, God, Adam, and Eve, knew that evil had entered into the place/space that God created to exist without any KNOWLEDGE or EXISTENCE of evil. Adam and Eve now knew that evil could exist in a world that God created because they chose to disobey God’s command. God, in His love, cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because it was meant to be a place of only peace with no evil.
After Adam and Eve were cast out, they had to work the earth to provide for themselves. The creation was now tainted with evil and was no longer a perfect place because many had chosen to disobey God. Over the years, humans built civilizations and were still able to walk with God. But the main problem was the undeniable sinful state of man. God’s wrath would eventually have to be poured out on man because they had sin. There was no way man had a way to exist with God because man was not holy like God was due to Adam’s original sin. Because of this, God decided to send His son (Jesus) to earth in order to become the sacrifice/atonement for all of man’s past, present, and future sinful deeds.
Jesus walked this earth as a human, but never ceased to be God. He was tempted with the same problems and evil we as humans are tempted with. But the difference between Jesus and humans is that Jesus never sinned while on this earth. He walked this earth and discipled 12 men to carry on His work. Eventually, Jesus was crucified on a cross in the time of the Roman Empire. This crucifixion was when Jesus took on all the sins of every man, woman, and child before He died. Because Jesus was perfect, He become the sacrifice that was needed to offer a way for perfection/holiness to be restored on the earth and in man’s heart. After His death He was buried and was dead in the grave for three days. On the third day, He rose from the dead and proved that He had conquered evil – making a way for man to have eternal life again.
The beautiful part of the gospel story is that we now have a way to go to heaven and be with God forever. Because Jesus, God’s son, defeated sin (death) we now have a way to live with God forever in perfection (heaven). Ever since Jesus rose from the dead, creation and man have now been in the process of being restored to right fellowship with God. God is restoring man to the original intent, perfect fellowship and complete oneness with a God who is pure, holy, and glorious. Until Christ Jesus returns (end times), we will always be in this process of restoration. For the person who accepts what Jesus did for us as the only way for us to be free of the evil we commit, this process is called sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus Christ Himself because God gave us something called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us live a life that is free of the sting and pain of sin so we can res present Christ while on earth awaiting His return.
The beauty of all of this is that God has always been a about loving us since the beginning of time. This is why He sent Jesus so we would not die without any hope of being able to go to heaven. The hard truth is we are sinful at heart and there is literally nothing we can do to remotely save ourselves. Because of our sin we must die. Sin is the cause of death because God cannot dwell in the midst of evil. This is why Jesus is everything. Without Him, we have no hope or ability to enter heaven. If you believe He is God and what He did was for you, then God says we are saved from the punishment due our sinful state.
By accepting Jesus’s work on the cross as the only way for us to live a life free of sin, we are accepted into God’s kingdom. When we stand before God, He sees that we have chosen to accept Jesus and not ourselves as the ONLY way to be saved. In so doing, God spares us from His wrath on our sin. After salvation, while Christian’s live on this earth, we get to grow into becoming more like Jesus every single day. One day, the decay from our earthly bodies will cause our physical state to die. It is at that moment, our soul wakes up in heaven. The process of growing is called sanctification and requires us to disciple each other to become more like Christ alone.
The Church Letters 