Saturday, April 3, 2010

A present? But its not even my birthday!

So today was Good Friday and its good to remind yourself on why its called Good Friday. This post is mostly inspired by Pastor Ken Taylor from Creekside church in waterloo by the way.

Its funny how its called good Friday since Jesus went through so much pain and suffering before getting nailed to the cross.

Good Friday and Easter Monday (Should be Monday since Monday is 3 days after Friday and not Easter Sunday, which is the day of the resurrection which confirmed that Jesus is the real deal and not just some other dude!) are days where we remember that Jesus died for us in order for God to forgive us of our Sins.

Lets look at the concept of Forgiveness. Forgiveness is what happens when you say its ok for another person who has done wrong to you. For example, if person A gets punched in the face by person B and person A say its ok don't worry about it... It can be said that person A has forgiven person B. In order for Person A to forgive person B, Person A had to absorb something... and in this case, it was pain, some suffering.. maybe a bruised jaw and hopefully not.. some missing teeth? haha

The point is, for forgiveness to work, one must absorb something negative.. such as the pain Person A probably experienced.

So in order for God to forgive us of our sins, He has to absorb something. Jesus, who is God in human form according to the Holy trinity where God, Jesus and the holy spirit are one and the same absorbed some HUGE blows as Jesus was first tortured, then he had to carry that huge cross up a mountain (imagine doing squats with barbells except holding that form and carrying that up a hill! That cross was probably way heavier that whatever i can squat!) Then he was nailed to the cross where he was left hanging with nails at his wrists. You've seen Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.. it wasn't pretty..

So God took this blow in order to forgive us and the act of Jesus being crucified is our sacrifice, our ransom and our substitute.

Although we have sinned so much against God and have turned away from God time and time again He still did this for us.. to save us from our sins. He was our sacrifice as in the past the Israelites would sacrifice doves for God. He was our Ransom.. because we are being held captive in this sinful world, but his ransom set us free. He was our substitute because WE were the ones that were suppose to go through all that. We were the ones who was suppose to experience all that pain and suffering, but because Jesus was substituted in our place WE dont have to go through that.

Why did God do this for us? Because of the Gift of Grace (God's unconditional kindness) Because he loves us THAT much

"I urge then first of all that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is a good and pleases God our Saviour who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2: 1-4

And that is the basis of Christianity... Love.. " and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" 1 Corinthians 13:13

Now that we ve been shown this Love by God... its up to us whether or not we choose to accept this Love, this grace... Kind of like someone giving you a present, fully wrapped on a normal day (not even christmas or birthday presents just a normal day, everyday!) We can choose to accept it and open the gift to look at its Goodness or we can just turn it down. Same thing with God's love and grace.. its freely given to us, we can either choose to accept it or we can turn it down. And thats another way God showed love to us.. he made us into beings who have free will instead of creating a race of robots just accepting every command (I would rather be a being with free will than a terminator haha!)

So my question to you is... now that you know what good friday is about...do you want to accept that present? or are you going to turn it down?

4 comments:

  1. awesomeblog; haha.

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  2. I don't like how you used Christ is our substitute. A better word for that is propitiation.

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  3. If god's love IS really unconditional, then he would accept anyone and everyone into heaven... even non-believers. If otherwise, then he is only accepting those that believe in him making his love conditional. What I'm trying to say is, whether we believe in god or not, shouldn't we all be forgiven and accepted into heaven regardless of our beliefs in the end?

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  4. Hey =) to respond ^anonymous:

    What is meant by God's love is unconditional is that He still chose to love us even when our backs are on Him. God is disgusted by sin. I don't know if you believe, but every single part of us in thought, action, words, and body is filled by sin (What God is not). Now what Christians believe (what I personally do believe) is that sin kills you. Not a physical death, but an eternal spiritual death. And sinners, we, I with no doubt deserve to die.

    How God's unconditional love come in place here is that He offer us life when we are still filled with sin. Remember, there is no part in God has sin. He so clearly separates Himself from sin. But He still chooses to GO to sinners into a sinful world and give them life. This does not mean that He mixes (or "contaminates") Himself with sinners. But that He did not care that we continually turn our backs to Him, mock Him, spit at Him, and even killing Him. Why? Because He unconditionally loves us and know how desperately we needed the life that can only be possible through Him. We are so blinded by our sin that we didn't know that His love is the one and only way.

    Now, what is NOT meant by God's unconditional love is accepting anyone and everyone into Heaven. I think that there is some confusion here of what unconditional love means. Getting into Heaven is not the ultimate goal or even the reason why people accept God's offer. It SHOULDN'T be. Like I (attempted to [lol]) explain in the previous paragraph, God's unconditional love means that He still choose to love us even when we are in sin.

    In terms of acceptance, yes God most definitely accepts and welcomes you to Him (to have life with Him). He came and was in our faces telling us about this life we can have in Him. Yes He was in our face. Yes He told us the truth about what is to come if we do not go to Him. Yes. Yes. Yes. But people don't want it. Some don't listen. Some don't even look. Some takes a look and look away.

    God is still standing there waiting, still welcoming, still offering this life, still screaming that HE IS LIFE. His love is unconditional. The tragedy here is people don't want it.

    Hope that answered some of your questions. Laters =)

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