Many people struggle with this idea that if God is love, then why doesn’t He just forgive?
Why do people have to believe in Jesus to be forgiven?
Why did Jesus have to die?

It is BECAUSE God is love that Jesus died and God refuses to forgive those who don’t believe in him and submit to him.

Why?
God is righteous and this is part of his love.
Honor is one of the ways He shows us his love.
He holds us in high esteem.
Also He doesn’t let himself be mocked.
What kind of God would that be?
He would not be loving himself nor would people hold him in high regard.
Who would want a God that people walk over?
We would not have trust in his power and ability to love and protect us if He would not even stand up for himself.
We would scorn him, even more than we might do now.
We would not love and obey him.
And how could He protect us from harm if people didn’t obey him?
How can a child be protected if it refuses to listen to it’s parents warnings?

So God is righteous.
That means that He doesn’t let any wrongdoeing go by without consequences.
It is because He loves and honors us so much that if someone hurts you or wrongs you that person has to give an account to God for what he did.

The same goes for you.
If you do any wrong then one day, either in this life or after you died, God will require of you a righteous payment. (unless…you receive Jesus and submit to him!)
Just like in this society when you commit a crime punishment has to be paid.
It sits well with no one  when a crime is overlooked with the argument that we all sin and that the crime has it’s root in a depraved upbringing anyways.

How would that make the victim feel?
He would not feel taken serious.
He would not feel loved and valued.
Also he would not feel protected.
The criminal can just commit the same crime again and again if he is not restrained.

No one might request an account of your wrongdoings while you live.
They might not be considered crimes in this society.
Yet God’s standard of right and wrong is often different from ours.
We might think it doesn’t matter if we gossip or put someone down.
If we get angry unjustified.
Or if we have idols. Things or even gods that are not truly God.
If we don’t acknowledge God and give Him the rightfull place in our lives.
Who cares?

But it does matter.
HE cares.
He cares about us so much that He won’t allow any injustice done to us without the right consequences.
He holds us and himself in high esteem.
However He also knows very well that we all failed his standard of love.
That none of us can love the way He does.
That we all deserve to die if righteousness truly was done.

We rebelled against the God of the universe.
How can his kingdom stand if rebels are allowed and given free range?
How could He offer any protection to anyone?

See also “Creator’s joy”.

And that’s why Jesus died in our place.
His death was the righteous payment for the sin of all mankind.
Because He is sinless, and He is God, his suffering and death
was enough to settle our debt with righteousness.
The debt of all mankind.

Read also “Loves price”.

But we cannot be forgiven if we don’t accept this sacrifice of love.
That would be like trampling on Jesus all over again.
God gave his Son Jesus to us to pay the price for our sin.
He let him be mocked and killed for our sake.
And Jesus did it willingly.
God himself died on that cross.

But He won’t accept the sacrifice of Jesus as valid, as rightfull payment, for those who won’t accept it and won’t submit to Jesus.
He won’t let you trample on his beloved Son.
Just as He doesn’t let anyone trample on you.

By dying for us He paid the rightfull punisment for those that did us wrong and thereby acknowledged our value, our worth.
He also paid the price for our own wrongdoing.
Only when we accept this and submit to him He can change us from the inside so that we won’t keep hurting others.
Read also “Choice”.
But also so that we can be healed from every hurt done to us.
This does mean though that we have to forgive others and not play judge over them.
After all the rightfull punishment for their sin has been paid, just as it was paid for you.

NOW (after accepting Jesus)
We can be forgiven and healed completely.
Now every wrong can be made right.
Now we can walk in forgiveness without feeling our hurts have not been acknowledged.
Without feeling our pain doesn’t matter.
Without feeling we have been wronged.
Now we know someone valued us so much He paid the rightfull punishment of what was done to us.
Because we matter.
Because we are important to God.
And now we know the rightfull punisment of our own wrongdoing was paid as well.
IN FULL

So that’s why Jesus died.
That’s why you can only be forgiven if you accept Jesus and submit to him.

Free Gift: click here if you want to accept this gift of Jesus.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and submitted your life to Him then this is the truth about you:

(read it, ponder it, meditate on it, BELIEVE it, declare it out loud replacing “you” for “I”)

You are a son or daughter of God.
You are forgiven of ALL past, present and future sin.
Your shame caused by sin or what others did to you is covered by Jesus blood and hidden forever.

Read also “Unashamed”.

You now have a radiant garment you can put on, it’s called Jesus Christ.
Jesus is your righteousness, not your own discipline and abilities.
You are a branch that is connected with a vine (Jesus) that is FULL of life and healing.
You are holy because He is holy.
You are a whole new creation.
You are perfect in God’s eyes.
You are a light in this world.
You belong to God forever.

Read also “You are Mine”.

If you don’t believe in Him and don’t submit your life to Jesus Christ then this is true about you:

(just open yourself for a moment and consider that it might be true, how would you feel about that if it was? What would your response be?)

You are God’s desire.
He longs to be in relationship with you and show you his love.
He will never stop loving you and He will respect the free will He gave you.
You will be separated from his presence forever if you don’t make the choice in this life that you want to be in relationship with him and submit to him.

So He can be all you would want God to be for you.
So He can save you.

He cannot save you if you don’t put your life in his hands.
Then He would infringe on your free will and He refuses to do that.
He wants you to want him!

Read also “Saved from what?”.

He loves you so much that He,
Jesus Christ the Son of God
who himself is God as well,
came to the earth as a man.
He lived a perfect life
He taught us the ways of God
Then He died on a cross
To pay the sentence
For OUR sin
And because of that we can now be
In rightstanding with God
Forgiven and clean

Read also “Mediator” and “Creator’s joy” for an explanation of why Jesus had to die.

Read “Free Gift” to learn how you can become a child of God.

No matter which of these two categories of people you belong:

GOD LOVES YOU!!!

And so do I

Don’t forget to subscribe.

Blessings!

“They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

What happened in between these lines?
Sin happened.
To be naked is only shameful when you have sinned.
Adam and Eve were already naked.
But they didn’t realise it because they had nothing to hide. Nothing to be ashamed of.
To be naked simply means that everything about you can be seen.
We might try to cover things up but God sees right through it. Maybe others don’t but He does.
Our own coverings our not satisfying to God. He still sees our sin.
But there is hope.
We don’t have to go through life naked or with self-made shabby clothes trying to cover up what we did and who we are or were, once…

“The Lord God made garments of skins for both Adam and his wife and clothed them.”

God does not leave us naked, in shame, when we sin. He gave us a covering. One that He made, not one of our own making.
So what does this covering look like? It was not made of fig leaves.
It was made of skins. Of animals. So that means something living had to die in order for them to be without shame. Their sin covered.
This was a picture of Jesus the Son of God who died in our place and took our shame instead when He hung on the cross naked.

If we accept what Jesus did for us (since a gift can only be received if it is accepted) and we submit our lives to God then He does not treath us based on our sin anymore.
It’s not like we can fool God and keep on living in sin because He covered our sin up. But when we truly understand this his goodness will lead us to repentance and not lead to more sin.
And He will enable us to live holy.

Jesus was stripped naked for us and we are now clothed with Jesus.
Our sin was reckoned to Jesus. He was punished for it so that righteousness would be fulfilled and God could be merciful and righteous at the same time. Like a judge that gives a sentence because it’s right but then pays that sentence himself because he knows that person never can.
So now when God looks at us He treaths us based on the perfect life of Jesus who never sinned and was spotless. His holiness is accounted to us.
So in God’s eyes we are perfect and without flaws now.
Not because our actions our now perfect but because we are clothed with Jesus who is perfect and our sin is covered in his eyes because its was punished when Jesus hung on the cross. So is we confess it and repent He does not hold it against us and in his eyes it doesn’t exist anymore. It was erased by the blood of Jesus.
That doesn’t mean He doesn’t see it when we still stumble and sin but He does not treath us based upon that sin.
Now God is not to be mocked. Sin still has a negative influence on us and it gives the devil access to our lives. So if we keep sinning although we are forgiven it still brings destruction because what we reap we still sow, but it doesn’t lead to eternal seperation from God.
And if we willfully keep sinning since we are forgiven anyways we are in danger of losing our faith  because faith comes through hearing God and when we ignore his voice and commandments we harden our hearts and are in danger of not hearing that voice anymore that gave us faith. And we can only be saved through faith.
But there is a lot of grace with God and once we accepted Jesus offering for us and submit to Him we are forgiven for all past, present and future sin.
And meanwhile He works in our hearts to change us.
He doesn’t leave us sinful. That would not be love since sin is destructive.

“Jesus died once and for all.”

All who receive this gift are now forgiven.
Don’t keep walking around naked.
Put on Jesus Christ. (through faith)
It takes away every shame in your life.
If someone still tries to shame you remind yourself of what Jesus did for you.
That HE carried your shame instead.
Your spirit is now made new (see “Free Gift”) and in Gods eyes you are perfect because your covering is perfect and does not leave anything unhidden.
The price of your sin (the rightful punishment) has been paid by Jesus so you are not in debt to God anymore. You are now in rightstanding with Him.

IN GOD’S SIGHT YOU ARE NOW BLAMELESS if you’ve put on Jesus!

Read here how (it’s simple, just believe and submit your life to Him) to become blameless.

Free Gift

What is humility and why is it important?
Let me tell you what it is NOT!
Humility is NOT feeling bad about yourself and dragging yourself down, saying what a pitiful creature you are and playing over and over again in your mind how you messed things up.
THAT is not humility. THAT is pride!
Yes you read it right, I’m not twisting it around. You might have though, like so many of us.

You see we are beautiful creatures made in the image of God. ALL of us.
You might have some dirt on you that covers that beauty, true.
But deep down beauty is hiding.
I’m not just talking to believers here who gave their lives to Jesus and are now what we call “born again”, a new creature in our spirit. (read Free Gift)
The gospel, the message, the good news this whole blog is about is that Jesus the Son of God came down from heaven to seek that what was lost. He came to redeem hidden treasures. You and me.
He didn’t come to save trash. He came to buy treasures.
He would never make a bad deal. God is not stupid. He would not lay down his life for something that’s not worth it.
You may pay a huge amount of money for trash if you think that will raise the worth of that trash, and it might make it more valuable to you, but God would never do that.
All humans are extremely valuable to God and He sent us his Son to show us our worth, not to make us valuable. We already are.
However we were treasures that were lost. And by dying for us on that cross Jesus bought us back. He saved us from eternal seperation from God, and reconciled us with Him again.

PRIDE say this is not true. It says God is a liar.
Pride puts it’s own opinion above God’s and therefore puts itself above Him.
Yes you might want to reconsider you opinions about yourself and repent, meaning to change them.
To stop seeing yourself as trash and a failure. God would not die for you if you were trash.
Indeed we all sinned and fell short of his standards for right living (righteousness). But that does not make us trash. It just covers our beauty, hiding it in dirt.
But like a rough diamant our beauty can be revealed! After He washes away the dirt with the blood of Jesus that was shed for us.

PRIDE can manifest itself in different ways in people that seem quite opposite, but the root is always that you resist God and put yourself above Him.

PRIDE also can say that you don’t need Him to forgive you and die for you but that you will pay for your own mistakes yourself.
But we never can.
Pride has a hard time receiving the grace of God.
It’s not humility at all to keep insisting that you are not lovable and don’t deserve his mercy.
Of course you don’t deserve it. All your ability comes from God. You can’t give him anything He didn’t give you first. Like a child buying a gift for their parents from the money they themselves gave them.
To even think you can deserve anything from Him, even when you never made a mistake, is pride.
You put yourself above God denying that He is the source of your live.
You can’t earn anything from Him, and that is very freeing, because it means you don’t have to strive all the time to receive his love and acceptance or the approval of people.
He approved of you when He made you. Your actions, neither failure nor succes, can’t change his affections towards you. His approval of you has nothing to do with your performance.
He approves of us because we are his. Like you approve of and love your own child.
You don’t get angry at your baby for not being able to walk. Or sing, or dance. And even when they have that ability but fail you don’t love them any less.
You love them because they are yours.
And that is how God loves us.
Because we are his creatures.
Not because we performed well.

It takes humility to accepts this.

Because then we can’t take any credit for our achievements anymore.
Not when it comes to determining our worth I mean.
Then we have to acknowledge that all our ability comes from God.
But it also means that nothing, nor succes nor failure, can ever diminish our worth or seperate us from God’s love.

So you choose…

Do you want to keep your pride and having to fight your whole life for a feeling of worthiness, of striving to gain love and acceptance?
Or are you willing to give that up, that pride that says you deserved this or that, but also often says you didn’t…
Are we willing to acknowledge God for who He is?
Our Creator, the source of our life. The source of any ability we have.
Or… do we make ourselves gods.
Do we attribute to ourselves that which comes from God….

Bless you!

Free Gift

God is the proudest parent in the universe.
We are his offspring the bible says, which means we are his children.
But are we indeed? All of us?
Yes and no…
We are if we accepted his love and sacrifice of Jesus for us.
We all started out as his children though, but many have cut of the familybond and desinherited God.
We may not even be aware of this.
Is that even possible?
Yes! God gives us free choice, He does not force us to be his children.
He wants us to want Him. That is amazing to me.
It’s not like He needs us…but He desires us!
Yet many people don’t want Him to be their Father.
Why?
I think it can be due to several reasons.
The main one is because of pride. Ours, not his…
Another one is that we have a wrong image of God.
We think He is cruel, abusive, judgmental or just absent.
Or you fill in what you think God is like….
You might think you don’t believe in God.
But often this is not true.
Why would you be offended at the mere notion of God, that He exists, if you didn’t believe in Him?
You wouldn’t care whether I believe in Him or not if you didn’t.
Issue is therefore not that you don’t believe He exists but that you’re offended at Him.
Just think about it for a moment. What do you feel when someone mentions God?
Like I do right now. What toughts and emotions come up?
Anger? Disappointment? Rage? For some maybe fear? Or just plain unbelief? Indifference? Hurt?
And why is that? Dig a little bit further into your thoughts and beliefs.
What makes you feel the way you feel about God? Stop being offended for a moment at what I write and the mere mention of Him and honostly ask yourself what comes up when you think about Him.
You have it? Clear what you thoughts and feelings about Him are? Ok now tell God these things.
Imagine Him being right there with you, because He is, whether you truly believe it or not doesn’t matter.
Test Him. Give Him a chance to show himself real to you. Real and caring about you!
Don’t go about like a proud peacock being angry or indifferent about Him without giving Him the opportunity to speak to you. Without having even met Him and heard Him out!
You will only hear Him if you listen you know.
So tell Him what you feel about Him and then ask (not  demand) Him how He feels about that.
What are his thoughts towards you?
Is He offended at you the way you are about Him?
His answer may surpise you.
(Spoiler alert: no He isn’t!)
Write down his answers. He often speaks through thoughts in our mind.
Then share what He said to you with someone else and ask them to do the same.
To tell Him their disappointments with Him and listen for his answer.
You can have a conversation with him like with anyone else.
And don’t get offended if you don’t hear an answer right away. It may come at an unexpected moment. Just be open for it.
If you are sincere and give Him a chance to speak and show himself to you He will.
He is not indifferent about you! But it takes two to tango.
If you truthfully seek Him you will find Him.
Just give Him a chance…

Bless you!

Free Gift

God where are you? Why did you leave me alone?

Even Jesus cried out on the cross: My God why have you forsaken me?
And don’t we so often pray for God to come to us?
Does life not all so often seem empty and void of any God?
Does He even exist and if He does, does He care for us?

I think He does, but I do not feel him as much as I would like. Not yet anyway.
So where is He? I would like to ask him some questions, you might think.
First thing I would like you to consider is that God does not need to answer to US.
It makes more sense it’s the other way around right?
WE answer to HIM…one day.
But…if He is interested in us He surely should make himself known to us?

Maybe HE is asking us the same question: Where are you my child?
My beloved son and daughter?
I so long to hear from you.
You broke of the familyline. You disinherited Me.
But I will accept you back as my child in an instant.
If only you will come to me.

And to those who already became his children again:
My child why don’t you talk with me?
Why don’t you eat from the dinner I prepared for you?
Why didn’t you move in the room I made for you in my house?
Why do you sleep on the treshhold instead?
It’s drafty out there, come closer to the fire.
Let me warm you. Let me feed you.
Let me sing over you. Let us be merry together.
Rest your head on my chest and I will give you peace.
I will take care of you, you don’t have to do everything on your own.

Let’s go back to the cross for a moment, where Jesus the perfect Son of God who came down from heaven gave his life to pay the rightfull punishment for OUR sin.
He cried out to God his Father: “Why have you forsaken me?”
But had God really forsaken him?
Just the night before He had told his disciples they would all forsake him but that his Father was with him.
The bible also says that Jesus endured the cross through the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of God that comes from God the Father. And it says this very Holy Spirit rose him from the death.
So clearly Jesus was not alone on the cross. His Father had never forsaken him.

It just felt that way.

Moments later after He cried out in anguish to the why of his seeming abandonment by his Father, He said “into your hands I commit my spirit”.
He quickly regained his awareness of the Father’s presence even in his suffering.
And He surrendered to him, showing him his trust like He had done the night before in the garden of Gethsemane, when He said “not my will, but yours be done”.
When Jesus felt forsaken on the cross He completely identified with our feelings of forsakeness.
Feelings. Not facts.
He also showed us the way to respond. With perfect trust. With total surrender.

“Father, into your hands I place my life.”

You can click on this link Free Gift if you want to know how you can place your life in his hands, your Father’s, who loves you and never left you and never will leave you.

“Where shall I go from Your spirit,
or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.”

Psalm 139:7,8

(btw we are not to follow David’s (who wrote psalm 139) example to hate those who hate God and those who do wickedness, we are to love them, because God loves them)

Free Gift

It’s kind of hard to get over christmas after only two days of celebrating it. I don’t intent to ever get over it by the way. This painting hangs in my livingroom all throughout the year.
I feel this whole thing of God becoming a baby has not even properly sank in yet.
I was raised christian and although I am thankful for that the danger is you’ve heard certain stories so often you don’t even realise the true meaning of them eludes you. Like christmas.
I think the bigger our conception of God is the more this amazes us.
Just think of it a bit longer. God became a man.
The Creator became part of his own creation. I think that is pretty amazing.

So what does christmas tell us? What’s the message?
First I think the picture of a baby being born in a filthy stinking barn is quite an accurate picture of the state of the world Jesus came into.
Jesus, innocent like a baby, did not come into a perfect sinless world. If that was the case then He didn’t need to come at all. He came because the world was dirty and needed cleaning up badly.
He didn’t come to condemn us, He came to save us from our dirt. To take that sin away from us.
To wash us clean from our guilt and then to change us into new persons that were not addicted to sin anymore but that were now able to choose freely the kind of life they want to live.
He gave us the ability to obey him, which we hardly were able to do before.
That’s why He came.

Second I believe God becoming a baby shows us how approachable God is for us.
He is not some angry distant deity far away on a high mountain we need to climb.
He cares about us so much He wants to be in relationship with us.
It has been like that from the beginning. Men turned away from God through rebellion but before they rebelled they walked closely with him in a place called the garden of Eden, which means delight.
They were delighted which each other. God was delighted with men, men were delighted with God, and men were delighted with each other.
That all changed in one moment.
A fallen angel, named Lucifer (later called the devil or satan, which means accuser, because he accuses us all the time) came into the garden in the form of a snake, and seduced men to disobey God.
He made them doubt about God’s good intentions toward them.
Lucifer himself, once a beautiful radiant angel gifted with many talents like music, became proud of his gifts and beauty and didn’t realise they came from God. That He had given those things to him freely out of love for him and the other creatures who would be blessed by them as well.
He failed to see how much God cared for him and had blessed him tremendously.
I don’t know why but for some reason it is or was possible to be in heaven with God and yet not know his love. At least for the angels.
It seems it has something to do with the free will God gives to the creatures He makes. Or at least to some of them like the angels and men.
Somehow Lucifer did not believe God loved him and therefore he rebelled against Him. He thought God was holding out on him and that it was desirable to be God himself. God had no other choice than to kick him out of heaven, together with one third of the angels Lucifer had managed to pursuade to rebel against God with him. I don’t know what those angels were thinking. They didn’t seem to be very smart to me though, since now they basicly made Lucifer their new god. What made them think he would be better?

Maybe that’s what we humans often do as well. We don’t like the notion of a God that is above us, and we can’t really believe He loves us, because there are certain things we don’t understand like sickness and suffering, so we reckon ourselves to be god instead. We probably don’t call ourselves god consciously but we do so nonetheless when we consider ourselves to be the highest autority in this world and don’t acknowledge God.
We also make other people and things in our lives god by giving them a place that only God should have. Like those things are better than God…

So the question remains: Is there room for God in our lives?
It seems amazing to me that we even get to ask ourselves that question.
I mean how is it possible that we even get to doubt God’s existence?
How can God allow us not to believe in Him?
Now that’s an interesting question right?
What does it say about God that He let’s us question Him?
That He allows us not to believe that He is good and kind towards us?
That He allows us even to rebel against Him and call Him all kinds of blasphemous things?
Why does he allow all this?

I think all people have at least one moment in their lives they have an understanding, a knowing deep inside, that God exists and made all this.
Yet we seem to be able to suppress that understanding and to live the rest of our lives in unbelief, even unbelief of his very existence.
How can this be?
I believe it has all to do with the kind and tender nature of God.
He is tenderhearted towards all of us. He is gentle.
He does not bark into our lives like a bulldozer and forces us to believe in Him and acknowledge Him as God.
That could never lead to a loving relationship with Him could it? We wouldn’t trust Him to truly care for us and to give us a free choice. We would be like slaves forced to obey. Robots even.
But God wants to be involved in our lives and He wants us to want Him.
Now that is one of the things that truly amazes me about God. That He wants us. That He longs for a connection with us. That He wants to communicate with us during our lives.
It brings me back to the chrismas story.
Of a God in the form of a baby. A baby that not only brings joy, but that we can bring joy to as well.
We humans can bring joy to God, simply by being his children and having a relationship with Him daily!

So the question is: ”Is there room for God in YOUR life?”
He loves you and He desires you!
Do you want HIM too?

If you never made the decision to become a child of God you can do so now.
Don’t wait. Life is short and you don’t know if you’ll have another chance to come to Him.
You can come to Him any moment, but you might not be willing to another time. You might just forget about Him, like we all so often do.
And you might not live another day. But if you are his child, you will be with Him forever and death won’t be the end of your life. Rather it will be the beginning of something new.

But if you’re not his child and you die today you will be separated from Him forever and both you and God will eternally long to be together, you with Him and He with you. But then it won’t be possible anymore because it has to be a free choice. Once you see his full glory after you die you can’t choose anymore. Anyone will be compelled to bow down to Him and worship. You only have a free choice now, in this lifetime. So take it. Accept his invitation to become his child.
He loves you deeply, more then you know!

Click on the link below if you want to make this decision that will change your life forever.
You will never be alone. You never have been by the way, but you may not have known it.

Free Gift

Between heaven and earth

If there is a messenger. A mediator, one amoung a thousand. To show man His (God’s) righteousness. Then He (God) says: “Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom! (Jesus)”
Job 33:23-24

There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2:5

God loves us so much He is willing to forgive us and yet He is not willing to do that without a ransom,
without someone paying the penalty for our sin. Someone who paid the price we owed to righteousness, we owed to God.
Why? Because otherwise we would not learn what righteousness is as I mentioned in earlier posts.

Read also “Creator’s joy”.

So we needed a mediator. Someone that could reconcile us back to God and make us in rightstanding with Him again.
Someone that loved us that much He was willing to give his life in exchange.
His life in our place. His life for our life.
Someone that deemed us worthy to die for. Even while we were sinners.
Someone that saw a great treasure when looking at humanity, at every single one of us individual, and saw something that was to be greatly desired and worth suffering for. Yes worth giving up all that He had. Worth giving up the glory and comfort of heaven and becoming like one of us. Suffering like all humans suffer. And even becoming so small He had to grow and learn the way all humans have to learn and develop.
Someone who was perfect and never sinned, and yet was willing to become a humble baby and live among hostile man. And even to die on a cross. Mocked, scourged, rejected and killed.
And yet He did all that for the very ones that rejected and killed Him.

They thought they killed a man.
Little did they know He was the Son of God who had come down from heaven to do just that: to die. That in fact He had surrendered himself willingly so that they could be saved instead of having to die themselves.
I am speaking now of the spiritual death we have if we are separated from God through our sin and the eternal condemnation this eventually will bring to us if we don’t repent. Then we spiritually die. The bible calles this the second death.
If we accept his sacrifice, his life that He gave for us, we become alive again spiritually and are united with God. And we have eternal life with Him. And yes one day our body will be raised from the death as well. It will be new, whole, healthy and perfect. But even now we can partake of some of the change this will bring to our bodies. Even now we can be healed and even now the dead can be raised and already have. (just do a google-search if you don’t believe me) All because Jesus carried our sin with it’s consequences in our place. So we even don’t have to be sick anymore.
I’m not saying sickness is a result of direct personal sin, but at it’s root the cause of sin is the depraved nature of a mankind that is fallen away from God. Once we see the provision God gave for us to be healed, through Jesus who carried not only our sin but also our sickness when He died in our place, we can be free from all disease. We just have to believe it.
But the greatest thing is we can be in right standing with God again if we choose to accept the life that He gave in our place. If we repent and say:

“Yes, I need you, I was selfish and lived my life for me, I put myself above you God, and did not acknowledge you and give you the honor that was only due to you. I made a little god of myself and others and gave things and people a place in my life that only you should have.
I repent for not believing in you and I now acknowledge you as God over my life and surrender to you now and every day of my life is yours from now on. I give you both my sinful past so you can erase all my sin and make me clean again. And I give you my today and my future so you can change me and do what you want to do in and through my life. Show me your plan for me, show me your will and help me to surrender to it.
Thank you that you are now with me and even in me. I am yours forever.”

If you prayed this prayer you might want to check out this website for new believers:

https://www.shilohfellowship.com/growingingod

And keep reading this blog, there’s a lot more to say…

Bless you!

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The bible calles it the wisdom of God
And foolishness to the world

What made God give up his Son
Let Him become a man and die on a cross?
What made Him do that?

“For God so loved the world…”
The bible says

What extravagant love is this?

I did not always have a conviction of sin
I love and believe in God as long as I rememeber
And I did not understand why Jesus had to die for me
I just knew it was true
And the cross gave me a sense of awe
Now and then

Later I became more aware of my sinfulness
It’s not about following rules
Having no sex before marriage
Going to church every week
Those things are important
But our behaviour comes from what’s in our heart
And to a degree we can modify this from the outside
And look good by living up to certain standards

But I’ve come to see more my true sinful nature
With which we all were born
And which only a touch from God can free us from
It wasn’t just about eating a forbidden apple
Like a child might take a cookie without permission
Although this was no ordinary “apple”
And eating it had certain consequences
It was also not that us eating a wrong fruit made God angry

What happens when people don’t obey the laws made by a king?
What happens when they don’t ackowledge his autority?
When they appoint there own rulers and crown another king?
If the king wants to uphold his kingdom he would have to punish
those rebels, or even put them to dead or lifelong imprisonment

You see God is the King of the world
And He allows us not to obey Him
But we shouldn’t think this has no consequences
Or how could his kingdom otherwise stand?

The sin of Adam and Eve, and all of us
Is that we place ourselves above God
It doesn’t matter how big our transgression is
In it’s core there are no degrees in sin
Our sin is not just to do something forbidden
It is that we rebelled against the king of the universe
That makes every transgression though seemingly small so big

So why did God send his son Jesus to earth to die on a cross?
I believe Jesus paid the price we deserved to pay for our sin
I believe the suffering Jesus went through is a picture
Of the severeness of our sinfulness
If we have trouble to see the depth of our depravity
The severeness of our sin
We just have to look at the cross
And see what price needed to be paid
To pay of our debt we had through sin

The righteousness of God looks different than ours
He didn’t want us to pay the price we deserved
But righteousness still had to be done
Otherwise we would not learn what is good and what is not

It’s not that God is mean and didn’t love Jesus
But He was able to pay a price we were not able to pay
Because He never sinned He was able to endure all suffering
To endure the darkness of men’s soul that now came on Him
And because He was pure darkness had no hold on him
And he rose from the death
Thereby declaring: it is finished, the price is paid
The debt we had to righteousness is settled
We are now in right standing with God
United with Him forever

If we believe

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When the Israëlites lived in the desert years ago,
They once encountered a large plague of snakes that bit them.
Many were dying.
God revealed to Moses that the cause of the plague was the sin of the people.
But God gave them a cure.
Moses put a bronze serpent on a pole and stuck it in the ground for all to see.
When the people looked at it they were healed.

This is a picture of the cross on which Jesus would die many years later.
Jesus was not the serpent though.
The serpent was satan, also called the devil, whose power was destroyed on the cross.
When people sin it gives satan power in their lives.
When you obey someone you give that person autority.
Satan tempts men to sin and if we do it gives him power over us.

Unfortunately his intentions for us are not very good.
On the contrary they are evil and he only wants to destroy us.
God on the other hand has always our good in mind.
He loves us so much He himself paid the price that we deserved to pay for our sin.
When He died on that cross He took away satans autority over our lives
Because our debt to righteousness, our debt to God, was now paid by Jesus.
So the devil has no claim on us anymore.

However in order to experience the benefits of what Jesus did for us
We have to look at it, we have to look at the cross and what it means.
To ponder the healing and deliverance it brings to our lives.
Believing is receiving.
It’s kind of impossible to receive a gift you don’t even believe was given to you.
Faith is the hands that receive.

That’s why Jesus said that all who believe in Him are saved,
although he died for the sins of the whole world.
But He didn’t just die to save us from eternal damnation.
He died to free us from every darkness in our lives.
To heal every disease and fill every need we have.
He provided this all for us on the cross.

We just have to look and believe.

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