An Invitation

What is Christianity?

At Faith Church, we believe that Jesus Christ is alive – really alive.  We don’t believe that the resurrection is just a nice idea, or that in some way that Jesus’ spirit lives even though his body stayed in the tomb.  We believe that the Bible’s account of the resurrection is as much of an historical event as Washington crossing the Delaware, Cal Ripken getting his 3,000th hit, or the Allied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944. 

But George Washington, Cal Ripken and the Allied armies of World War II don’t have a lot of lasting meaning to you and me.  The resurrection does.  Here’s why:

When God made us, his desire was that we would enjoy a relationship with him as parent and child.  But God didn’t make little robots. He gave us the power to choose, including the ability to choose how we respond to him. Along with a whole lot of other things that come naturally to us, one of the things we are particularly good at is saying “no” to God.  Not out loud of course, but throughout our lives we all make decisions – in big things and little things – to do things our way rather than God’s way.  

As a result we’ve built a pretty big wall between God and us.  God is holy, and we are sinners, and therein lies the problem.  And the bad news is that wall isn’t coming down unless something really radical takes place.

But the bad news can also be good news!  Admitting that we have a need is the first step toward that “something radical” taking place in us. 

God loves us so much that he allowed his Son to become one of us so that he might go through punishment for the sin of the whole human race.  That’s what the crucifixion was all about.  But Jesus didn’t stay buried in a grave.  God’s power raised him from the dead as proof that he had paid for our sins and that he had won out over the power of death.  And because of that we have a standing offer of a new start:  Jesus is willing to take that wall we’ve built down for good.  And that’s what Easter is all about!

How does that wall come down?  How do we begin to relate to God? 

Were you brought up to think that you could find forgiveness and eternal life by doing good or performing some religious ritual?  How about the idea that God is at the top of a mountain, and there are many different paths to him?  Sorry – those things won’t work.  In fact, if it were possible to find our way to God in those ways, Jesus’ death and resurrection are really quite insignificant. 

What God calls us to is to put our faith (trust, confidence) in what Jesus did on the cross and in his resurrection as our only hope of forgiveness.  It’s like looking at the payment options when you fill out an order form, and crossing out everything else except the box that says, “I can’t fix this and I can’t pay for this, so I will accept Jesus paying for it in my place.” 

When you come to that point (the Bible calls this believing,) the wall between God and us comes crashing down, and God gives us a new life and a new heart.  We’ll never be judged for our sins, and we can have confidence that when we die, we will go to be with God in Heaven.

You’re not going to be perfect and you’re not going to find that all of your problems disappear.  But if you begin to learn more about what the Bible says and live your life according to God’s instructions, you’re going to find that you are thinking and acting in new ways, and that you are in a new way relating to God as his child.

You might wonder where this comes from.  Is this just our church’s twist on the Christian thing?  Actually, it is the heart of the message of the Bible.  Does that surprise you?  There are a lot of people who respect the Bible, but still think they are going to get to God on their own terms.  If God cares enough about us to fix this problem between us, doesn’t it make sense that we do it his way?

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Christianity. You can do so through the Information Request page.

Peter Bogert

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