Sorry it has taken me so long to get this out to everyone. Right now it is just difficult for me to sit on the pc very long and try to concentrate and type something up. Part of the problem is I like this topic and have a tendency to get long winded, so I apologize up front if this gets long. To start let me say that one of my favorite phrases is “the bottom line”. I don’t like doing all this beating around the bush. Sometimes beating around the bush is fun but most of the time, I like to get to the point and get on with it. When I started putting this together I had a completely different topic in mind, one that was a tad bit more neutral for this page. Somewhere down the road if I finish that one I will try and post it. I was reading another post and someone said something about understanding. I like that. Understanding is a good thing. A smart fellow (of which I am far from put I try) is one who looks for knowledge which leads to understanding and wisdom (big difference between knowledge and wisdom). As humbly as I can, without trying to be confrontational, what I am going to try to do with this is inform, give you an opinion on what I believe. For my believing friends, most of you may have heard this before. It does not hurt to review every now and again. Get back to the basics for a few minutes. For the non believing friends or those who straddle the fence, I feel that you probably do not what to hear this but, as a friend, I would not be doing right by you if I did not at least tell you this. From my point of view your eternity does not look good, and I do not want that for anyone, friend or foe. The Bible says if we believe that we should tell everyone the good news and that is exactly what I am going to do. What you choose to do with it is entirely up to you. After all of that beating around the bush let’s get to the bottom line . Romans 3:23 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. First what is sin? The term sin is an archery term which means miss the mark. In the case of archery your arrow has missed the target or mark. For the believer sin means not being the person that God wants us to be. We all fall short of what God wants us to be. God wants us to believe and have complete faith in him. You are saved by faith. You are to live by faith. You are to walk moment by moment by faith. When we do not do that, we have sinned or missed the mark. Romans 6:23 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Like anything else there is a price for this sin. The wage we all have EARNED is death. Death is the opposite of life; I believe that we all can agree on that. Any time the Bible talks about death it is talking about being separated from God. God is life and what we get when we are away from God, or life, we get death. To quote from one article I read, “So we are standing on the wages that we ourselves have earned for our sin which is death”. Your first thought is then what is the use, I cannot do it by myself so I am going to die. Why should I try? There is a “BUT” in the verse. That little word but separates the bad stuff, the wage of our sin, from the good news. Now we talk about the gift. A gift is something that someone gives you or you give to someone. They did nothing to “EARN” this gift. Most of the time when you give someone a gift it is because you have feelings for them or like them. When you receive a gift, someone has paid for that gift in one way or another, but it is not you paying for it. My next question is how much more valuable is the gift to you when it is from someone that loves you. I have little things from my daughter that mean nothing to anyone but me. Not worth the pennies or paper they were created on. Because, they are a gift from her, given with the love and trust that only a child can have, they mean more to me than anything money will ever buy me. We have a gift like this for us from God. Romans 5:8 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This gift is so precious and given with such love only God could give it. Anyone that is a sinner, (all of us), does not deserve this gift, and we most definitely could DO nothing to earn it. God gave us Jesus to pay for our sins. This is no “Fairy Tale” There are historical documents that prove that there was a man Named Jesus, who created political and social unrest during the time the Bible says he lived. Did he do the miracle that the Bible says, that is where faith comes in. I believe that he did. But, to say that Jesus did not exist, would be like saying that any historical figure from that time, did not exist. Until we can come up with a better way, we have to take the documentation from that time and believe that what it says is true. So Jesus came to earth and lived a perfect live, without sin, so that when He was killed on the cross, He could pay the price for our sin, a price we could not pay for ourselves. Jesus takes our death and we receive His life. It is the ultimate gift: forgiveness and eternal life. Eternal life means, being in God’s presence forever in heaven. Last but not least how do we get this gift from God. Romans 10:9-10 9because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. We must believe in our heart that Jesus did exist. That He is the son of God and did all of the miracles that the Bible says He did. He paid the price for our sins, a price that we could not pay for ourselves, and hung on the cross and died. He was buried and 3 days later He became alive again. When we say that we are saved and ask God to guide us through the rest of our life, we are telling God that we trust Him and we and to follow Him. Believing in Jesus is the one and only way to get the gift of eternal life. We can go around and around if there is a God or not. We all have seen the threads on this page, both believing and non-believing. For every point that I can come up with for God, there will be someone who will come up with a point that says there is no God. This debate has been going on for hundreds of years before us and will be going on until the end of time or Jesus comes to get us one of the two, depending on which way you want to believe. I guess the bottom line is this, I live like there is a God and try to do the things that He would have me to do and be the person that he would have me be. The question is if I am wrong what have I lost? Yes, the world has many things to offer, riches and pleasures that I will never know. Never had much money don’t reckon I ever will, but they say it is not bad. I try to be kind to everyone even those that are not kind to me. My pride and feelings get hurt, but in the grand scheme of my life, and the disease that we all live with, I will get over those hurts and try again tomorrow. In among those hurts, living the way that God would have me live, if I have made someone’s day a little brighter, helped someone up that is down, the trade off is worth it. That is the choice that as a believer I have made. On the other side of that coin, the question is what if I am right and there is a God in heaven. What have I lost and gained then? If I am right, which I believe I am, there is a heaven and hell. The only way to heaven in my belief system is believing the things that I have said above. In all religions, heaven or whatever you want to call it is a good thing, for the rest of eternity. If you do not believe you go to hell. That, all of my friends, is the bottom line. So the question that we all have to ask ourselves is what you have to gain and what you have to lose and the cost of each in the way that you believe.
The book of Romans has changed the world, it shows me that this sinner can find the Grace that leads to eternal life, it shows me that Jesus accepts me as I am, with an unconditional love that I cannot find no where else. For me it the most important book Paul wrote, I definitely read it more than any other..
Your post on Romans made me think of the above verses. Very good post Greatful Ted. Well explained. Thanks.
Ted, Great job in summing it up. I've always pondered this question: Was the Gospel ever presented straight forward to me in the first 45 years of my life (I went to Catholic school for 9 years and Catholic college for a year)? If it was, I never heard it. Now, is it possible that it WAS presented clearly to me and my heart didn't receive it so my brain didn't absorb it? I'll never know but I DO know that on March 31, 1999, I accepted Jesus into my heart and everything changed.
Many thanks to everyone for the kind words, It was most definately my pleasure, I hope that all readers enjoyed it. Jazz Girl thanks for the verses from Matthew. Just re-enforces what is said in Romans. Thanks for posting them. Kim, Bottom line, When Jesus called you answered. God bless each and everyone of you, Thanks again!
