Now let me explain myself since I know that this concept is rather strange.

We all are sinners “for all have fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:25) and God gets angry when we sin   “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)” and “[…] the wages of sin is death […] (Romans 6:23)”.

So the bottom line is: All of us are sinners and the all-powerful God who controls everything is angry at us because of our sin and his wrath needs to be appeased.

Crap. We have a problem here. We need salvation… from God.

Enter Jesus Christ.

Christ came into the world to save sinners on the cross in which “for our sake he (God) made him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin […] (2 Corinthians 5:21)” and when Jesus took on our sin when he died on the cross he became the sacrifice in “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood […] (Romans 3:25)”.

Now let’s reflect on that word propitiation. Propitiation is defined by dictionary.com as: to appease or make well disposed; conciliate. So when I say “Jesus came to save us from God.” what I mean is that God sent his only son to die to appease his wrath against us because of our sin so that we wouldn’t have to endure God’s punishment “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth […] (Luke 13:28)”.

Phew… there’s hope.

As you can see, the Bible teaches that we need salvation from God and his wrath, not from Hell; In other words Jesus didn’t come to save us from the punishment as much as he did come to save us from the punisher. But the odd thing is that the punisher sent Jesus to save us from himself, but it’s also beautiful in a way. God loves us so much that he sent his son to die so that he wouldn’t have to completely annihilate us even though we fully deserve to be annihilated.

But wait, it gets better.

Not only do we get saved from the wrath of God, we become children of God “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12)” So now we are able to enjoy a father-child relationship with him through Christ. And even on top of that we receive the privilege of “[…] the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)”

In summary, Jesus was sent by God to save us from his wrath which is revealed against our sin so that we could become children of God and enjoy eternal life. Now,  I’ve chosen to take God up on his offer and I thank him for it, and if you have done the same then you should thank him as well and spread the good news to your friends; but if you haven’t than I’d seriously suggest it if I were you. Just sayin’.

Underage Thinking

Why do I believe what I believe? What is my purpose? Is there really even a God out there? And if he is, what is he like? Very few “churched” teens would ask themselves these questions.

It seems as if most kids just seem to accept what other people believe around them. They just take in what they are given from their parents, friends, teachers and pastors and “believe” it and even replicate it. Its dangerous to merely copy someone else’s lifestyle because you don’t truly own it, you only borrow it blindly not knowing the significance of knowing what you believe.

Now far be it from me to be the one to kill your faith in God. I’m only asking for you to ask questions about “why”. Why you do what you do? And why do you believe what you believe? Because an unchallenged faith is a faith that will soon grow weak and die out. And in the end you’ll wonder if you ever even truly believed in the first place.

USA Today did research and found out that “Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 — both evangelical and mainline — who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research. And 34% of those said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. That means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church.”

And though I stress the fact that your faith must be questioned, I also believe that all of a person’s facets of life must be examined as to not bring injustice or misunderstanding. Because the Civil Rights Movement didn’t just appear out of nowhere, it was the product of people who questioned how their life was and they saw the injustice. And you never know, a movement might even rise because of you. As Socrates once said “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Genesis 3

The Fall

¹Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ²And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³but God said,’You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened,and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.⁸And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

²²Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Now you may be wondering why God separated Himself from humanity. Was it because of a piece of fruit? No. It wasn’t the fruit that separated us from God. It was disobedience. But is one sin enough to create separation between us and God? Yes it is. Why? because God is perfect, holy and pure. He has zero tolerance for sin, because sin is unholy and impure. And for this reason we are now separated from God and the only way we can be in fellowship with Him again is through a mediator, someone who will allow us to be with God again. That person is Immanuel who’s name means God with us. Needless to say, this is the perfect name (though He has many other names besides Immanuel) for our redeemer. In fact not only are we in need of a mediator to recover our fellowship with God, we also need a savior because God has punished us with death and Hell because of our sin and the only way we will ever be able to be saved from our punishment is through Jesus a name which means God saves (it is both beautiful and ironic that our judge is also our savior). This Jesus (our savior) and Immanuel (our only way to fellowship with God) are the same person and that person is God Almighty Himself.

1. To know Jesus more so that we may love him more
2. I want you (and myself) to see that Jesus is the hero in all of the Bible, not only the New Testament.
3. To understand the underlying theme that the Bible teaches us, namely that we are sinners that need a savior and that savior is Jesus
4. And to motivate people into getting into the scripture and to seek God when they do so.

As I have already said, I am very excited to begin this series of posts and I shall be posting the first one shortly.

Your brother in Christ,

Alexander

What do you guys think? Comment!

(Don’t worry, once you guys choose the best one I will do edit it, I will put in some more color and then I will type the name of the blog on the logo and the size may be different.)

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But before you see the options I want you to know why I chose the pictures that you see. They are all lyres (not harps). I chose lyres because of a very impacting illustration that a teacher at my school used to represent the satisfaction Christians have in Jesus. Here it goes:

In Greek Mythology the Sirens were mermaid-like creatures that had beautiful voices. And whenever a ship would sail by their home (which was usually extremely rocky) they would sing and all the sailors would go crazy because they wanted to be with the Sirens but when they tried to sail close to them they died because the sailors would crash.

Odysseus was curious about the Sirens.  Legend had it the Sirens would give men knowledge, wisdom and a quickening of the spirit — and Odysseus wanted to experience their lethal charms.  Known for his guile and treachery, Odysseus instructed his sailors to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast.  He ordered them to leave him tied there, no matter how much he begged to be set free.  When Odysseus heard the Sirens’ bewitching songs, his heart ran with longing to follow their voices, but the ropes held quick and his men stuck to their orders.  The ship sailed quickly to safer waters. (link)

The teacher said that Odysseus yelled at the top of his lungs LET ME GO! LET ME GO! but the sailors didn’t hear them.

In a different story:

In the story of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason is urged by the gods to include Orpheus — the great singer and musician — in his entourage to find the Golden Fleece.  As Jason’s ship passes the island of the Sirens — and their fatal songs begin — Orpheus draws out his lyre and plays his music more loudly and beautifully, drowning out their voices. (link)

The teacher at my school said that Orpheus played so well that the sailors thought that the Siren’s song wasnt even comparable to the beauty and glory of Orpheus’ melody.

And the teacher ended the illustration like this: Are you going to desire sin and yell at the top of your lungs that you want the very thing that will kill you in the end or will you want Jesus. The man who’s song, if you could only hear it, is the most amazing thing in the world. His song made sin’s song die down under the sound of his lyre.

And that is what I want with this blog. I want people who want to follow Jesus, not because they will get a “get out of Hell free card”but because they understand that Jesus is the best thing in this world and those who believe that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection (the Gospel) is THE WAY, TRUTH and THE LIFE.

John 14:6 (New International Version)⁶Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

And once people believe that. They change completely. They no longer live for themselves but for Christ, the one who gave them their life.

2 Corinthians 5:15 (New International Version)¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

This is my desire and my passion.

Sincerely,

Alexander

2 Corinthians 13:14 (English Standard Version)¹⁴The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Another thing I would like to add is that you are now able to rate my many blog posts from 1 to 5 stars.