Bible

Why Should We Follow Jesus?

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

The question has been asked, What is the point in being a follower of Jesus?

It is a valid question and deserves a good answer. 

After all, who is this Jesus who came along 2000 years ago? Recorded history tells us that He showed up thousands of years after people had already been worshipping God.

This is a hard question, to be sure. For the answer, we must turn to the Bible, which is the inspired word of God. 

The Bible is not a single book, but actually 66 books written over a period of approximately 1500 years by around 40 different authors.

Let’s take a look at John 14:6-7 for the answer to our question. 

As it happens, Jesus was answering a question from one of His disciples about following Him.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

These are bold words, but if we’re serious about seeking God and serving him, we must take them to heart. 

If there truly is just one way to God—and Jesus is it— then we must become one of His followers.

To do otherwise is to risk our eternal destiny. If we’re wrong, then we’ve lost nothing. But if we’re right, then we stand to gain much. I’ve written about this before in another post.

Just a few verses before the ones above, Jesus says,

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

John 14:3

Jesus wants us with Him. He already has a place picked out in Heaven for every one of His believers.

And just so he’s clear and there’s no confusion—with some 4300 different religions in the world by one estimate—He tells us exactly how to get to God, and it’s through Him.

So, what do we need to do to become a follower of Jesus?

First of all, we must understand our need for Him. 

Romans 3:23 tells us,

For all [emphasis mine] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23 explains the penalty for our sins as well as our reward for following Jesus: 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 10:9 tells us how to accept Jesus into our lives and be forgiven of our sins:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The final step is crucial. Find a good, Bible-believing church and tell the pastor that you have accepted Jesus into your life. Ask to be baptized and begin attending the church.

In Acts 2:38, Peter the apostle says,

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

While baptism itself does not save you, it does represent our death and rebirth in Jesus. Likewise, church attendance is not mandatory for salvation, but Christians go to church to worship God and associate with other believers.

So, to answer our original question about following Jesus…

Jesus is our pathway to God. He is the only way to be forgiven of our sins, become reconciled with the Father, and experience eternal life with Him.

For me, that’s reason enough. What about you?

Quit Trying to Understand God

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

If you want to commit your life to God and walk in obedience to Him, you must forget what you think you know about how life works. As mere humans, we can never fully understand God’s ways.

We’re told in Isaiah 55:9,

For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

If you stop and think about it, nothing about God and His creation really makes any sense. 

For example, in our human way of understanding, everything has a beginning and an end. 

Just look at our lives. We’re born, we live a certain length of time, then we die. That holds true for every single human being. There’s no variance to this pattern. Some may live longer than others, but every person has a beginning and an end.

God is different, however. The scriptures tell us that He has always been. He was not created by another entity, and He has never not existed. There’s no time in history when God wasn’t around. He created the concept of past, present, and future as we know it.

Our human brains struggle to make sense of this. How can something or someone have always been in existence? It’s not possible, our minds scream. Yet, it’s true. 

If we can truly wrap our heads around this fact, then we’ve come a long way toward accepting all the truths we’re told about God in the Bible. 

If we believe that God is all-powerful, then surely we can grasp the fact that He flooded the entire earth, or parted the sea so His people could escape capture, or resurrected His Son from the dead.

We, ourselves, can’t do any of these things; it’s not within our power to do so. This fact makes it quite difficult to believe that these things are possible. We simply must suspend disbelief and realize that there are things that a divine being can do that we simply can’t. 

I believe that’s why the Bible begins the way that it does. In Genesis, we’re told in detail how God created the heavens and the earth, then populated the earth with a man and woman and a multitude of animal species. 

He just puts it all out there right off the bat. If we can accept the truths found in Genesis, the rest of the Bible shouldn’t be a problem for us. 

The question is, do you believe the narratives found in the Bible? If you struggle to believe what you read in scripture, ask God to strengthen your faith; He’ll do it. He wants us to wholeheartedly accept Him and His ways.

To do so, it’s necessary to put aside human logic and accept the fact that God’s divine nature can’t be explained using our limited logic.

If you can do that, you can begin to commune more fully with God and worship Him as the Divine Creator that He is.

Just remember—it’s not always supposed to make sense. If it did, we wouldn’t need faith. And we’re told in Hebrews 11:6a that without faith it is impossible to please God.

So exercise your faith today. Don’t worry about understanding God. Simply worship Him by pondering on His glorious attributes. 

Now Is the Time For Eternity

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

There’s really nothing more important than salvation and our eternal destiny. If we really stop and think about it, it’s horrifying to picture someone cut off from God forever, lost and suffering in hell. It’s almost too awful even to imagine it—the thought of eternal suffering with no end in sight.

As humans, we cannot fathom eternity. Even if we live a long life by human standards, most of us would be fortunate to see a century of life on this earth. This length of time in no way compares to eternity. We have no experience that can give us an inkling of what that is like.

But when I begin to think about eternity, I don’t want anyone to suffer for that duration. And I don’t believe God wants that either.

That’s why He sent Jesus, his Son, to be our Savior. He made a way for us, His creation, so that we might live with Him forever. He did that because He loves us, even though we are imperfect sinners.

We don’t really deserve God’s mercy and love, because of all the wrong things we do each day. Yet, he loves us anyway, despite our flaws. 

Because of Jesus’ human birth, death, and resurrection, we have access to God’s saving grace. Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins once and for all when he was crucified mercilessly on the cross 2000 years ago. 

If you’ve never accepted this grace, then now is the perfect time to do so. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is Lord over all and came in the flesh, invite Him into your heart as your Savior, repent of your sins, and ask Him to help you live a sin-free life.

Then, find a Bible-believing church to become a part of and get baptized as a sign of your renewed life. It will be the best decision of your life. You’ll then be a believer in Christ and can rest easy at night knowing that your eternal destiny is sealed.

Becoming a Christian won’t make all your trials and challenges magically disappear, as many times in the Bible we’re told that we’re likely to suffer for the sake of Jesus if we’re his disciples. 

But you’ll have the reassurance that God is with you every step of the way, through the good times and the bad.

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Heb.13:5b

What could be better than that?

With God on our side, life can be a wonderful adventure each day, no matter what we’re faced with.

So, go ahead, make the decision to let Jesus be Lord of your life. There’s no better time to do it than now.

Is the Bible Still Valid?

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

Can the Bible be trusted as a reliable source of wisdom for today’s modern world? 

Society and culture are vastly different from the way they were when the Bible was written. 

People from biblical times could not have imagined the world we live in, with all our modern conveniences and technology—no more than we can imagine with any accuracy what life on this planet will resemble 1000 or 2000 years from now. 

The question is a valid one because the whole Christian faith hinges on an accurate rendering of the Bible and a solid belief in this accuracy. If we don’t have the Bible to rely on, then we really don’t know what truth is. 

We have to be able to answer the question to our satisfaction so we can continue to lean on the Bible as our anchor and truth.

The problem is, if we start to question any part of the Bible as far as its accuracy and truth, then we have to call into question the entire Bible. 

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

Simply put, either the Bible is true or it isn’t. It can’t be partially true; we can’t accept sections of the Bible as fact and conclude that other parts of it are false.

Some people will probably say that I’m over simplifying a very complex question. I disagree, however. 

On the contrary, I believe that God intentionally makes some aspects of His kingdom very simple. 

After all, we’re told in the Bible that we must have the faith of a child if we expect to make sense of it all. Jesus says in Matthew 18:3 (CSB),

Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

To me, this means that we simply must believe. 

Believe what God tells us. Believe that He created us in His image. Believe that Jesus is His Son and that He was crucified for our sins.

No, none of this makes any logical sense. After all, if God created us, who created God? 

At some point, however, we have to stop with the questions and simply rest in faith. God is God and we aren’t. 

He gave us the Scriptures to guide us through life, which as we know can be treacherous. The Bible is meant to give us hope, strength, and wisdom. 

If we can’t trust the Bible in its entirety, we can’t trust God in His entirety, because the Bible is

breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. 

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

I chose the English Standard Version for this verse because it renders God’s role in the formation of the scriptures as “breathed,” rather than merely “inspired,” which other versions use. 

The Bible comes literally from the mouth of God and was given to us to help us become the strong, solid Christ-followers He wants us to be. 

We can’t pick and choose what we believe is true in God’s word. Either it’s all true, or it’s all a fallacy. 

I side with the former conclusion, which means I believe that the Bible is as valid today as it was 2000 years ago. 

We can still turn to it to find wisdom and truth, just as our ancestors have for generations. Unlike fashion, the Bible never goes out of style.

What about you? Do you believe the Bible is still valid?

Photo by Wendy van Zyl from Pexels