Re: Understanding Jesus
Submitted by F.O.D. on March 23 1999 at 16:33:17
In reply to Understanding Jesus Submitted by Ben on March 19 1999 at 07:25:07
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Hi been, for bunch a Christians, we've been awfully slow at answering your request to talk about our relationship with Jesus, haven't we? :-* Here's a little about how my journey with Christ started... I grew up in a church going family, all Christians, though we've had to give Dad a kick up the pants sometimes to read his bible and pray for us. As a boy, I just accepted that God was there as a fact of nature. I knew that Jesus had died for my sake, but I suppose I didn't think too much more about it than that. I call it a child's faith, but faith it was, and I consider myself a Christian even at that time. As I was entered adolescence, I started challenging the basic assumptions I had held as a small boy, being challenged to get to know God for his own sake, reading the bible for myself. Getting real about my faith, not just assuming it. At 14 I started being hit by a kind of spiritual paranoia: "What if all our church leaders were deluded over this stuff about Christ that they teach us? What if this whole world were just some sick, cynical joke created by some insane malevolent superbeing just to see how we would react?" And at that point I realised, yeah, maybe this life is a bad fantasy, but ultimately the joke is on the insane being, because I knew by my heart there is a deeper reality still, a place beyond the insanity, a someone, who loves me. I recognise that someone as God, the God of the bible, and I recognise the knowing of him as being the movement of his Spirit in my heart, I recognise Jesus as the one come from the Father to bring me back to the Father. There are a whole lot of reasons why accept the God of the bible as being the True God, and Jesus being his representation come to us on Earth. People talk about "contradictions" in the bible, but I've never seen any argument that credibly convinces me the bible is all a fairy tale. With regard to other religions, I see Christianity as being unique in that it is the only religion where God himself takes the step requires to bring reconciliation with man, where he brings himself to man. In all other religions man has to somehow get his own way to God, by being "good" enough, by meditating enough, whatever. It's a futile task, in my opinion. God is so far above you that you can never attain his level, try all you like. So, my faith is a combination of the mystical, listening to the voice of the Spirit of God in my heart - the part that atheistic critics can never accept - and the reasonable, looking at the historical basis of the biblical accounts, studying the consistent and logical plan of God as revealed in the bible, comparing the basic premises to those of other religions. I feel very much that Jesus is my "best friend." When I think about how I want to direct and express my sexuality, I have very much in mind, that Jesus is with me alongside, watching me, loving me, and so I want to be sure that I handle in a way that's not going to upset him, my friend. When I think about the pain he went through dying on the cross for me, it brings me to tears just how immense his love for me is. And then when I think that each time I sin it's is adding another hammer blow adding to his pain back then... It's for that reason that I seek to honour him in my life, learning to be holy, not as a set of rules, but in order to show love to the One who loves me. I see my life as an adventure, seeing where at each turn will God lead me next. It's great to think back on all the places we've been through together. All love to you, Ben, as you search Him out, F.O.D. |