Post by JEM on Dec 21, 2007 5:17:55 GMT
The Purpose of Christmas ?
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Many humans do not believe in God and do not believed that the universe was created and is sustained by God
Many others believe in God and regard him as perfect but in all honesty have to accept that we humans are not perfect. We are each flawed in some way or another and the Bible which is the only authority we can quote maintains that All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all imperfect and so debarred from access to Heaven
The only way we can get there is by being changed and that by God
This he has made possible through Jesus Christ and by no other means.
God has intervened into human affairs by sending Jesus into our world to teach us and to reconcile is with Himself
So it is possible for us all to go to Heaven but only because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, and only if we believe in God and trust in Jesus
But lots of people do not believe in God, and do not trust Jesus, or follow after lots of other religions and ways of life contrary to what Jesus taught
By rejecting Jesus they disqualify themselves from going to Heaven
That can be rectified in that they can go tere if they are willing to do so
the have to REPENT
and repent means
Change course admitting that we have been in a state of rebellion and unbelief
Expressing to God our sorrow for not taking him seriously and loving him, Determined to trust, and follow what he asks and expects of us in the future
We will still fail him as we are flawed creatures, but He can compensate for that by what Christ has done for us, and because we are his friends God will accept us into Heaven and God will change all who go there so that they will be acceptable, but those who reject His offer and don't believe in Him. disqualify themselves,
Central to the celebration of Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ. who around the age of 30 appeared in Judea proclaiming to great crowds of ordinary working people, families, young people, and slaves a new message the central core of which was that we should love God and one another as much as we love ourselves.
At that time that was a revolutionary thing to do where a tiny minority of people were rich and lived in luxury on the backs of slaves and heavily taxed peasants.
The Religious elite of those times kept “ the masses” controlled by over 600 religious rules and regulations based on the Ten Commandments and widely broken, not least by the religious elite. Without obeying all these rules the people had been led to believe there was no hope of their being accepted by God or of going to Heaven.
In later centuries at various times the Christian Church became like that too, and we had to pass through the Reformation of the Church in the 15th - 17th centuries followed by a lot of arguments, quarrels and divisions through the 18th -20th centuries. But since 1900 the churches have been coming together and working together a lot more and barriers have been broken down and friendships ignited.
As to access to Heaven The Bible which is our only actual written authority has never claimed that everyone will automatically go to heaven. Only righteous people are accepted by God into Heaven. Which is sensible if Heaven is to be a pure and perfect world it would be unwise to pollute it with people who did not fit in or did not want to be there. In 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 we read
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 0nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The last book of the Bible is called REVELATION but to most people it is very confusing and lots of people over the years have tried to use it to predict the future, and to predict the date of the return to Earth of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of his promise to return They have all failed because they have failed to heed the warnings he made about speculating about things known only to God.
The author of REVELATION saw a series of visions and at the end of his experience he wrote
Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
It would take a long time to explain all the images in this passage but he
has been explaining what he saw, that at the end of time as far as this planet is concerned God will create a new Heaven and a New Earth and that on Earth there will be a city called NEW JERUSALEM that will be located in Palestine, but will not be the present Jerusalem as that by then will have been destroyed, The new Jerusalem will have descended from above, rather like the image of the giant spacecraft of the film "Independence Day"
Th proportions are 1,500 miles long, wide and high with walls 200 feet thick Inside it will have it’s own lighting and heating, and food supplies for all who will live in it Outside on the rest of a desolate planet where there will be no sea. those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood, will exist without access to God
It is difficult to understand what the writer is on about because before God creates a new Heaven on Earth, the New Jerusalem,
there will have been the war to end all wars,
the devastation of the overpopulated planet,
the return of Jesus Christ,
the 1000 year resign of Jesus Christ on earth,
the final rebellion by those who oppose Jesus Christ,
the Final Day of judgement when the souls of all those who have ever lived will be judged and sentance passed, Those who have rejected God will be destroyed, and God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth
Jesus just before he went to his death and rose from the dead, appeared to upwards of 500 believers and 6 weeelks later ascended into Heaven told his disciples In my fathers house are many dwelling places., if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you and when I return I will take you there.
He did not give that message to everyone, just to those who believed in him In his public ministry a lot of his teachinhg was in parable stories, and most of them are about the Kingdom. His kingdom that he is setting up and drawing people into and it is an everlasting kingdom
According to the Bible’s time tables we are still at least 1000 years away from the creation of a new Heaven and a new Earth because that is the length of Christ’s personal reign on earth when all other authorities will give way to his government so if he returned today, we would be that far away from that happening.
Yet scientists tell us that by 2050 the world population will reach over 9 billions and life will no longer be sustainable.
Evangelical Christians have long regarded the return of Christ as imminent
On Biblcal teaching we are all made up of body and soul. When the body dies the soul lives on.
The souls of those who have accepted Christ as their saviour are met at death and taken to be with Christ and to return to Earth when he returns.
The souls of everyone else sleep until the final day of judgenent, when they will wake and be judged according to the way they lived
The Bible says "there is none righteous no not one". So on that basis none of us are going to Heaven, except the Righteous people, but there are no such people except those who have accepted this, as their Saviour because it is his righteous life that allows us to have access to Heaven.
Now as democracy loving humanist we may think that unfair, but who are we to question what God the creator of life and all things may decide
He has made it possible for everyone to be rescued and go to Heaven but only on his terms, and those who chose to ignore his terms disqualify themselves from going there.
We are all sinners as far as God is concerned
We are all flawed and imperfect
We of ourselves are unacceptable in a perfect place like Heaven
We can only get there if God intervenes and invites us
That he has done throught JESUS CHRIST
We are clearly told that
He offered us a way of being reconciled and reunited with God the creator of the universe, the source of all life
At that time various civilisations clashed with each other with several religions and many supposed deities or idols all claimed to be right and all were different, althogether confusing
Religion means a way of life, a human culture based on certain beliefs, rules, regulations and traditions added to over centuries. These had become barriers between the real true God and ordinary human beings.
Jesus Christ burst through these traditional beliefs with a revolutionary new message.
Yet so simple to observe that we should love God because he has first loved us, and that we should love all our fellow human beings and try to help one another. In a dog eat dog world where a few wealthy rulers were waited on hand and foot all the time, by an army of unpaid slaves that was a new idea, which over the centuries, gave us schools, colleges, hospitals, hospices and thousands of charities.
It is not religion with all it’s traditions that we need but reconciliation with God
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son
Now Muslims who appeared as a religious force between 500 and 600 years later than Christ, proclaim that God never had and never needed a son. That is either because they do not believe in the same God, or they did not clearly listen to what Jesus Christ had taught
Jesus spoke to humans about our needed to be born twice
Once into the physical world as with human bodies,
Then into the spiritual world
That we have only experienced the first birth then we will die twice, once when our bodies can no longer survive, and then years later when the souls of all human kind will be judged by God.
To be amongst those who will survive both deaths we need to trust in Jesus and what he has done for us, to be accepted by God as the friends of Jesus
Only those who rely on Jesus to be reunited with God will go into Heaven.
For those who believe they are instantaneously accepted into Heaven when they die physically their soul will be collected and taken there.
The souls or personalities of those who do not believe these things will sleep until the final day of Judgement to hear their fate from the voice of God.
Then the unrightous not acceptable with God wil pass into hell to be destroyed with all forms of evil
and God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth
It is a myth to believe that when we die we will all go to Heaven.
Heaven is a place of perfection and nothing may enter and survive there which is not perfect.
Therefore as all humans are flawed in some way or other we none of us have any right to believe we will be accepted there
unless God has invited us.
The invitation is that "God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosever will believe on him will be saved"
We cannot get right with God just by being good, or doing good,
God only accepts the sacrifice made on our behalf by
Jesus Christ who died on the Cross and has risen again to life,
We are saved for Heaven by the power of God working in the life death and rising from death of Jesus Chrtist, and that by the Grace of God
Once we have been accepted by God, then it is our responsibility to try to avoid doing bad things and endeavour to do good to all men and women.
This we will find difficult at times,as we are flawed creatures but God can help us to do so.
Faith without good works is inadequet. We are saved in order to serve instead of being served.
Jesus said of himself "No one can come to God my Father except through me" Just following any religion cannot guarantee it for you.
Just attending church services in itself is not sufficient effort to get into Heaven
Doing good cannot do it
Any religion or teaching of philsophy that leaves out Jesus and what he taught is hopeless to trust in or follow.
What does God expect of us humans?
To love him and one another
To live in the right way
To walk humbly without boasting
#########################################
##################
Many humans do not believe in God and do not believed that the universe was created and is sustained by God
Many others believe in God and regard him as perfect but in all honesty have to accept that we humans are not perfect. We are each flawed in some way or another and the Bible which is the only authority we can quote maintains that All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all imperfect and so debarred from access to Heaven
The only way we can get there is by being changed and that by God
This he has made possible through Jesus Christ and by no other means.
God has intervened into human affairs by sending Jesus into our world to teach us and to reconcile is with Himself
So it is possible for us all to go to Heaven but only because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, and only if we believe in God and trust in Jesus
But lots of people do not believe in God, and do not trust Jesus, or follow after lots of other religions and ways of life contrary to what Jesus taught
By rejecting Jesus they disqualify themselves from going to Heaven
That can be rectified in that they can go tere if they are willing to do so
the have to REPENT
and repent means
Change course admitting that we have been in a state of rebellion and unbelief
Expressing to God our sorrow for not taking him seriously and loving him, Determined to trust, and follow what he asks and expects of us in the future
We will still fail him as we are flawed creatures, but He can compensate for that by what Christ has done for us, and because we are his friends God will accept us into Heaven and God will change all who go there so that they will be acceptable, but those who reject His offer and don't believe in Him. disqualify themselves,
Central to the celebration of Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ. who around the age of 30 appeared in Judea proclaiming to great crowds of ordinary working people, families, young people, and slaves a new message the central core of which was that we should love God and one another as much as we love ourselves.
At that time that was a revolutionary thing to do where a tiny minority of people were rich and lived in luxury on the backs of slaves and heavily taxed peasants.
The Religious elite of those times kept “ the masses” controlled by over 600 religious rules and regulations based on the Ten Commandments and widely broken, not least by the religious elite. Without obeying all these rules the people had been led to believe there was no hope of their being accepted by God or of going to Heaven.
In later centuries at various times the Christian Church became like that too, and we had to pass through the Reformation of the Church in the 15th - 17th centuries followed by a lot of arguments, quarrels and divisions through the 18th -20th centuries. But since 1900 the churches have been coming together and working together a lot more and barriers have been broken down and friendships ignited.
As to access to Heaven The Bible which is our only actual written authority has never claimed that everyone will automatically go to heaven. Only righteous people are accepted by God into Heaven. Which is sensible if Heaven is to be a pure and perfect world it would be unwise to pollute it with people who did not fit in or did not want to be there. In 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 we read
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 0nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The last book of the Bible is called REVELATION but to most people it is very confusing and lots of people over the years have tried to use it to predict the future, and to predict the date of the return to Earth of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of his promise to return They have all failed because they have failed to heed the warnings he made about speculating about things known only to God.
The author of REVELATION saw a series of visions and at the end of his experience he wrote
Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."
"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
It would take a long time to explain all the images in this passage but he
has been explaining what he saw, that at the end of time as far as this planet is concerned God will create a new Heaven and a New Earth and that on Earth there will be a city called NEW JERUSALEM that will be located in Palestine, but will not be the present Jerusalem as that by then will have been destroyed, The new Jerusalem will have descended from above, rather like the image of the giant spacecraft of the film "Independence Day"
Th proportions are 1,500 miles long, wide and high with walls 200 feet thick Inside it will have it’s own lighting and heating, and food supplies for all who will live in it Outside on the rest of a desolate planet where there will be no sea. those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood, will exist without access to God
It is difficult to understand what the writer is on about because before God creates a new Heaven on Earth, the New Jerusalem,
there will have been the war to end all wars,
the devastation of the overpopulated planet,
the return of Jesus Christ,
the 1000 year resign of Jesus Christ on earth,
the final rebellion by those who oppose Jesus Christ,
the Final Day of judgement when the souls of all those who have ever lived will be judged and sentance passed, Those who have rejected God will be destroyed, and God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth
Jesus just before he went to his death and rose from the dead, appeared to upwards of 500 believers and 6 weeelks later ascended into Heaven told his disciples In my fathers house are many dwelling places., if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you and when I return I will take you there.
He did not give that message to everyone, just to those who believed in him In his public ministry a lot of his teachinhg was in parable stories, and most of them are about the Kingdom. His kingdom that he is setting up and drawing people into and it is an everlasting kingdom
According to the Bible’s time tables we are still at least 1000 years away from the creation of a new Heaven and a new Earth because that is the length of Christ’s personal reign on earth when all other authorities will give way to his government so if he returned today, we would be that far away from that happening.
Yet scientists tell us that by 2050 the world population will reach over 9 billions and life will no longer be sustainable.
Evangelical Christians have long regarded the return of Christ as imminent
On Biblcal teaching we are all made up of body and soul. When the body dies the soul lives on.
The souls of those who have accepted Christ as their saviour are met at death and taken to be with Christ and to return to Earth when he returns.
The souls of everyone else sleep until the final day of judgenent, when they will wake and be judged according to the way they lived
The Bible says "there is none righteous no not one". So on that basis none of us are going to Heaven, except the Righteous people, but there are no such people except those who have accepted this, as their Saviour because it is his righteous life that allows us to have access to Heaven.
Now as democracy loving humanist we may think that unfair, but who are we to question what God the creator of life and all things may decide
He has made it possible for everyone to be rescued and go to Heaven but only on his terms, and those who chose to ignore his terms disqualify themselves from going there.
We are all sinners as far as God is concerned
We are all flawed and imperfect
We of ourselves are unacceptable in a perfect place like Heaven
We can only get there if God intervenes and invites us
That he has done throught JESUS CHRIST
We are clearly told that
He offered us a way of being reconciled and reunited with God the creator of the universe, the source of all life
At that time various civilisations clashed with each other with several religions and many supposed deities or idols all claimed to be right and all were different, althogether confusing
Religion means a way of life, a human culture based on certain beliefs, rules, regulations and traditions added to over centuries. These had become barriers between the real true God and ordinary human beings.
Jesus Christ burst through these traditional beliefs with a revolutionary new message.
Yet so simple to observe that we should love God because he has first loved us, and that we should love all our fellow human beings and try to help one another. In a dog eat dog world where a few wealthy rulers were waited on hand and foot all the time, by an army of unpaid slaves that was a new idea, which over the centuries, gave us schools, colleges, hospitals, hospices and thousands of charities.
It is not religion with all it’s traditions that we need but reconciliation with God
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son
Now Muslims who appeared as a religious force between 500 and 600 years later than Christ, proclaim that God never had and never needed a son. That is either because they do not believe in the same God, or they did not clearly listen to what Jesus Christ had taught
Jesus spoke to humans about our needed to be born twice
Once into the physical world as with human bodies,
Then into the spiritual world
That we have only experienced the first birth then we will die twice, once when our bodies can no longer survive, and then years later when the souls of all human kind will be judged by God.
To be amongst those who will survive both deaths we need to trust in Jesus and what he has done for us, to be accepted by God as the friends of Jesus
Only those who rely on Jesus to be reunited with God will go into Heaven.
For those who believe they are instantaneously accepted into Heaven when they die physically their soul will be collected and taken there.
The souls or personalities of those who do not believe these things will sleep until the final day of Judgement to hear their fate from the voice of God.
Then the unrightous not acceptable with God wil pass into hell to be destroyed with all forms of evil
and God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth
It is a myth to believe that when we die we will all go to Heaven.
Heaven is a place of perfection and nothing may enter and survive there which is not perfect.
Therefore as all humans are flawed in some way or other we none of us have any right to believe we will be accepted there
unless God has invited us.
The invitation is that "God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosever will believe on him will be saved"
We cannot get right with God just by being good, or doing good,
God only accepts the sacrifice made on our behalf by
Jesus Christ who died on the Cross and has risen again to life,
We are saved for Heaven by the power of God working in the life death and rising from death of Jesus Chrtist, and that by the Grace of God
Once we have been accepted by God, then it is our responsibility to try to avoid doing bad things and endeavour to do good to all men and women.
This we will find difficult at times,as we are flawed creatures but God can help us to do so.
Faith without good works is inadequet. We are saved in order to serve instead of being served.
Jesus said of himself "No one can come to God my Father except through me" Just following any religion cannot guarantee it for you.
Just attending church services in itself is not sufficient effort to get into Heaven
Doing good cannot do it
Any religion or teaching of philsophy that leaves out Jesus and what he taught is hopeless to trust in or follow.
What does God expect of us humans?
To love him and one another
To live in the right way
To walk humbly without boasting
#########################################