For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and had troubles falling back to sleep. It was probably the coffee I had in the evening, which is the risk I take when I drink caffeine. I had a conversation earlier in the day with my Jewish friend about the Old Testament (Torah to them). I try not to push my “Christian” faith with her and try not to bring Jesus up, but it got me thinking…can a Jew be a Christian? We also discussed how I had been taught as a child that the Mormon’s where a cult and not a Christian either…I have since learned otherwise of course. These thoughts brought me to the above verse early this morning…the simplicity of our Christian faith.
When you read the verse, what do you think? Is it not really a simple statement? If you believe that God sent is son Jesus to earth, you will have eternal life. It means EVERYONE who believes in Jesus will go to Heaven…sure you can read more into it, but why? Can we not keep it a simple statement? This means every religious background that believes in Jesus as the son of God (not some prophet), will have eternal life. Does that go for Jews, Mormons, Gay’s, etc too? For sure it does…it goes for everyone! The rest of our walk with Jesus is up to the individual person. My core belief is the same as every Christian…Jesus is the son of God and he died for us on the cross, and I will have eternal life for that. The rest of the rules and regulations are up for interpretation. I am not totally sold on the whole concept of the Trinity (turns out that is an issue with the Mormons too…maybe I am more Mormon LOL), but does that make me less of a Christian? Are there certain levels of Christianity (i sure hope not).
My walk with Jesus keeps changing…the beliefs I agree up in church with have changed. I think it is because I am growing up and learning to question what I have been told and focus on my walk with Jesus and let him show me what my beliefs are. What I may believe as a “Christian” way may not be what others think either. I am ok with that because we all have to do the walk with Jesus in our own way. I have friends (Christians) who love Zombies…that is just a concept I don’t understand because to me they are evil, but to them they are fun…so what right do I have to tell them they are walking in evil? If I think they are evil, then I will stay away from it, and pray for my friends that if there is any evil to Zombies, that God keeps it away from them. Even the Goth thing and Christianity…I don’t totally understand…Jesus is the light yet Christian Goth’s seem to walk in the dark…but again, where am I to judge someone. I love the Goth clothing and I know I can’t be Goth because I am too bright and smiley for it LOL. I tend to not make a big deal of my beliefs about such things because it is between me and Jesus. Now, if someone asks for my opinion, I might be pushed to say it…for example, a friend asked for opinions about telling her kid that Santa is real. I have issues with lying to kids about stuff like that, so I said that. Granted I was the minority in that thinking (figures), but nobody criticized me for it because she asked for opinions, and I gave it. I never said that my way was right though, because all it is, is my opinion. Why would my opinion be the right one? Why is someone’s else’s opinion the right one?
I will cling to my core belief and the rest of my walk with Jesus is between me and him. If someone has issues with that, keep it to yourself and just pray for me instead LOL. What I don’t understand is why church’s have such issues with being an individual. I don’t force my ways on others. But I guess the reason there are so many denominations is because there are different ways to belief and you need to start a new church for each belief LOL. I am hoping there is a place for us in this world, but if there isn’t, I guess I know there is one in Heaven for us where our beliefs aren’t an issue any more.
Being a Christian is very simple…and I just don’t know why everyone makes it so complicated. Now granted some people like words and digging deep into the Word of God and the history of it all. I am not saying they are making Christianity more complicated, they just love the deeper aspects of the words, where I like the simplicity of the words. We all have our strengths and God creates us to be unique and different peoples of God. My facebook friends Mo & Bill are pastor like people and they love the pickier aspects of God…but they don’t look down on my on my simple Christian ways. I don’t think they are any more Christian than I am, they just love “theology” more than I do. There is nothing wrong with that until it becomes a judgemental thing and fingers get pointed about who is a better Christian than someone else. Does that make sense? Probably not because I tend to babble LOL.
My point of this is that we all can have eternal life with God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit (as a separate being or a Trinity). It doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, where your religious faith stems from, etc…it is just a matter of believing and the rest will come as you walk the amazing walk that is with Jesus Christ.