Who is Jesus? Why did Jesus come to this world? Why Jesus had to die on the cross? How do we understand God's love for humanity?

These are the questions that strike us some time or the other. We quite often hear that Jesus is the only way to God, eternal life and heaven. We have also read many times and have seen posters and stickers that say, Jesus is the only one who can forgive sins! In the passage below, I have tried to bring forth the answers for the same. This was written after much prayer with the help of the Holy Spirit asking Him to give me the wisdom and guidance by which the readers will understand the perfect truth.

God is the holiest of the holy, purest of the pure! For God, there is no compromise for holiness or purity. The opposite of holiness or purity is sin. So God hates sin and there is no compromise for sin with God. When God created Adam and Eve, they were pure and sinless. They enjoyed, experienced and shared the fellowship of God in the Garden of Eden. They used to walk and talk to God. (Genesis 3:8) There was a one to one relationship between them and God and it was exactly for this that God had created them, to be in His constant company and fellowship. But when man disobeyed God, sin entered in between. God can not compromise on sin, so He drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23) and thus man lost the fellowship of God that he enjoyed at the Garden of Eden, he lost God's constant company. And the result was death. Death came into the world along with sufferings and hardships, as a result of disobedience. (Genesis 3:16-19, Romans 5:12) But God still loved man, whom he had made in his own image and likeness. He wanted that His creation will come back and worship Him in Spirit and Truth. So He gave man a way out for him to be cleansed and forgiven from sin, and that was the sacrifice of a 'pure' animal like a lamb or an animal from the herd or the flock without any defects. (Hebrews 10:4, Leviticus 1:3-4)

The wages of sin is death. (Romans 5:12-14, 6:23) So sin can be undone only by death. Since a man can live and die only once, hence the sacrifice of a pure animal was done as a symbolic act for the forgiveness of man's sins. This was God's rule in the Old Testament times. But God's love to mankind was so great that He decided to have a solution to the problem of sin once and for all. And God sent His only begotten son Jesus Christ. (Jesus Christ is God himself, the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) in human form as the ultimate sacrifice for man's sins. (Hebrews 10:9-13)

We see that for forgiveness of sins, God had asked for the sacrifice of a 'pure' animal. The stress on purity was very important for anything that was being offered as a sacrifice to God in the Old Testament times. A human is born by the genetic combination of a man's and woman's genes, that of his parents. Since Adam and Eve sinned, all the offspring that came to earth by the genetic combination of their genes had the weakness to commit sin. Our character, our internal strength and weakness are governed by the genes that we inherit from our parents. We are bound to sin in one way or the other during our life span. There is no human being born to human parents who has not done a single sin in his life and is one hundred percent pure and holy. And this makes us impure in front of God. So God decided to send His son Jesus Christ; who is the only one pure and holy and worthy of the ultimate sacrifice for man's sins?

Now it becomes the more important for us to understand the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was God himself, yet in human form going through the same life and its problems that any human being will. And for Him to be offered as a sacrifice for all of humanity's sins, He had to be born pure holy and remain so till His death. Only then could such a sacrifice be acceptable to God. How could this be possible? The gospel of John gives us a very clear picture on this. John 1:1 says - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In Genesis we see that God had formed the heaven and the earth and all the living things on earth by His Word or by His commands. It was the Word of God that gave birth to all the creations from emptyness. And John 1:14 says - The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ was not born out of the union of a man and woman or a father's desire to have a son or a mother's desire to bear a child but by the Word of God that became flesh in Virgin Mary's womb. That was the only way to be born as a human being. So the genetics that Jesus Christ had was not like what we inherit from our parents, nor that of any human being. He was born pure and holy and had all the character traits and internal strengths to resist sin and remain completely pure and holy among the sins of the world. Luke 1:35 says - The angel answered to Mary,"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." Mathew 1:18 says - This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. What I want to state is that Jesus Christ is God, created by God Himself and put forth into Virgin Mary's womb to be born as a human. And because of this, Jesus Christ was born pure and remained sinless. This answers quite well, our questions of who Jesus Christ is and why He had come into this world as a human being.

Finally, we will see why He had to die on the cross and God's love for mankind. God had sent Jesus Christ as a pure, sinless and holy sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind, what I love to say is that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that any one can ever do. It was important that Jesus Christ remained pure and sinless as only then would the sacrifice be acceptable to God. And that's why God had created Jesus Christ as a special being. Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was God's solution, once and for all, for the forgiveness of man's sins and for man to get back to the same old constant company and fellowship that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. That's why Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). There is no other way for us, the sinful human beings, to come to God other than through the forgiveness of our sins by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is only then that we can enjoy the fellowship of God in our life (1 Timothy 2:5-6).

If you accept in your heart that you are sinful and that only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross can forgive your sins, then dear friends it's high time to repent and come back to that great fellowship of God, before it's too late. Lets be washed, cleansed and renewed with the power of the Holy Spirit and receive the fellowship of God. Thus the result of sin is Death and the result of repentance is Eternal life. It is in our hands now to take the right decision. May the Spirit of God be with us and bless us.

Jesus Christ and Salvation

Dear friends, why do you think Jesus came into this world? The Bible records the miracles that Jesus did, the blind could see, the deaf could hear and the dead were raised. Was this the purpose? Or was it to create a new world religion? Or was it to establish a new Church? Let's try to answer these in the passage below.

If I ask you a question as to what happens to us after death, how many of us know the answer? Is this life on earth everything? Or will we keep taking birth again and again as humans or animals based on our deeds? What happens to us after death? Bible is very clear on this question. We have only one life on this earth (Hebrews 9:27 - "Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment") and after that what lives on is our spiritual being which has a life for ever. In that, there is no gender, no physical body but only the spiritual being. God created man as the combination of the physical body, the spiritual being and the soul (Genesis 2:7 - the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.). When we are conceived in our mother's womb, our physical being is also filled with a spiritual self and a soul (1 Thessalonians 5:23 - "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"; 1 Corinthians 15:44 - "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body"). Our soul is the mind or the intellect or the inner conscious or the will and it governs both our physical being and the spiritual being, though we never come to know of our spiritual self as we see our physical self. After death, both the soul and the spiritual self leaves our body and the body returns to the earth from which it was made of while the spiritual self and the soul returns to God Who had given it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7 - "and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God Who gave it.")

Our life on this earth is very limited, may be about a hundred years and much less than that in most cases. What we do in this life, is an act that we do with our physical body that may or may not be exactly what out conscious intellect or the soul instructs us. Our action as an individual is the combination of what our soul (mind, intellect, conscious, will) instructs us and what exactly we do with our body. It may not be that we follow our conscious all the time. One part of our soul speaks to us that doing a certain act is not correct but our desires and senses together with the mind starts controlling our physical body so much that we become restless till the time we have committed that wrong act. Once that is done, we immediately face a guilty conscious, a feeling that we have done a wrong thing which shouldn't have been done. But if we keep ignoring this inner prick and continue doing the same, we then never feel the wrong that we do. The knowledge of right and wrong should come from God as He alone is the Righteous. Therefore it is very important to know the word of God which is the Bible. That's why God gave the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel for them to know exactly what they were doing was wrong or right in the sight of God. Besides the Ten Commandments, God kept on guiding his people through the whole of Old Testament as God is the only point of reference for truth. He alone is Righteous, Pure and Holy. God gave man a free will and since man choose to disobey God, we have an inherent tendency to get attracted to the wrong side and keep on doing wrongs even though we have the knowledge of right and wrong. And in doing so, we keep distancing ourselves from God cause God can not and will not partake of anything that is unholy, impure or wrong. There is no compromise for God.

The answer to why Jesus came into this world lies here, in understanding this form of man - his soul, spirit and physical being. That's how God has made us. And God will certainly judge our spiritual being based on what we have done in this life. And since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), we have only one judgment which is of eternal death that will come to our spiritual being. But since God loves us, His creation, so much that He doesn't desire even one spiritual being to be destroyed by eternal death, He sent Jesus Christ as a price for man's sin. Jesus Christ is God himself (Triune God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and He bought us with a price and delivered us from our sins for ever through His sacrifice on the cross. (Romans 3:24 - ...and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.) Only by the sacrifice of Jesus is the forgiveness of our sins, the wrongs that we do in our lives, wrongs as those that are against the will of God. While we are alive in the physical body, the spirit and the soul, we should accept this with our full heart and ask God for the forgiveness of our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, and then we will be free from the bondage of sin and escape the eternal death to our spiritual being. If we do that, then God gives a great promise, the promise of eternal life in the Kingdom of God, for our spiritual being.

Jesus didn't come into the world just to give healing to the physical body, to do miracles, to make followers and create a new religion or to establish a church. He came into this world so that you and I could have a way to save our spiritual being from eternal death due to sin and be heirs to the kingdom of heaven by receiving eternal life. Jesus Christ came to save our soul, our spiritual being. This is a free gift from God, for man could not have done anything for his sins to be forgiven before God. All the other things are secondary but the primary purpose is to save our souls and our spiritual beings from eternal death. After the resurrection of Jesus and His lifting up to Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, to guide us in our lives (John 14:16-17 - "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth. The world can not accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you"; John 16:7 - "But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you."). So when we accept Jesus Christ into our lives the Holy Spirit takes control of our spiritual being and guides our soul and the body according to the will of God. Only God can cleanse our soul and spirit and renew it. Please read Romans 8:1-17

Once I heard a great Muslim convert giving his testimony. He asked his Muslim priest, "What is it that cleanses my conscious?" But he never got the answer. When Jesus Christ touched his life, he got that answer from the Bible in the book of Romans. And he realized that there is no religion, no penance or no other God other than Jesus Christ who can cleanse your conscious and renew your spirit. And that was possible only because He became a ransom for our sins on the cross. This was the reason for Jesus to come into this world.

Dear friends, today we pray for healing, blessings, job, successful career, finances and many other things that concerns to our physical life or material needs. But let's arise and start thinking of our life after death too, the life of the spirit and soul that never dies and is eternal. So wake up and save your spirit and your soul. Accept Jesus Christ and accept the free gift of eternal life to your spirit and soul. It is a free gift that we receive only if we accept it with our own free will. (Mathew 6:33 - "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.")

Sickness, Troubles, Financial Problems! Is this all from God? Is God punishing me for my sins? Will God ever help me out of this mess?

My dear friends in Christ, these are the questions that I have come across in my life in various situations and surely many of you also have. Being a person blessed to know and experience the love of Jesus Christ in my life, I want to share with you how I have been lead by God in all these situations and understood the answers to all these questions.

We all want to live a very good and comfortable life, free of problems, sickness and financial insecurity. But there won't be a single person whose life has been smooth. Even if you belong to a very rich family or are financially challenged, even if you are a very healthy person or are physically challenged or sick and even if you are spiritually very strong and committed or an atheist, it is for sure that in your life you will be confronted with problems. And sometimes they are so grave that many strong have become heartbroken or mentally unstable or even decided to end their life. At such situations, we often think, is there any God? Why am I facing all these problems? We fervently try to seek God to get out of the mess but still nothing works!! What is happening? How can I come out of this? Will this drive me crazy? What will others think if they come to know in what a mess I am? Will my faith and belief in God work? Will my prayers be ever answered? Is God real?

Let me tell you at the beginning itself that no problems, sickness or troubles are from God. God never wants us to be in a bad shape. But then, why are there all such problems in the first place. If you have read my earlier blog on God's creation of mankind and man's disobedience to God, you will know that God had created Adam and Eve as perfect creatures, in His likeness and put them in the Garden of Eden which the Bible describes as a paradise. All of God's creations were put under man's control and God had provided for everything that man would ever require. There was no sickness or death in the Garden of Eden and man enjoyed the constant company of God, a privilege to walk and talk with the creator himself. But out of the free will granted to man, he chose to disobey God and as a consequence, he was driven out of the paradise of Eden, death came to man and so did all the troubles and sickness. So it is for sure that we will face pain and troubles and sickness all through our life and eventually die one day, not because God wanted it that way but man choose to take the path of disobedience by his own free will.

But then, God out of His love for His creation has never left us alone to suffer. As we see in the Old Testament, God has constantly walked with his people at all times. He led Israel out of Egypt and did many a miracle including the crossing of the Red sea. He guided them and fed them in the desert for forty years. From time to time, He spoke through prophets and delivered His people from their enemies. And the greatest of His provision was His Son Jesus Christ himself who died on the cross as a sacrifice to forgive man's sins and restore his relationship with God, to set us free from the bondage and slavery of sin, once and for all (John 8:34-36 - Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.").

By man's own choice, he choose to disobey God but because of God's love for His creation, He has given us a provision in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that if we accept by our own free will, the price Jesus Christ paid on the cross by his life, we will be forgiven of our sins and saved from eternal death and become eligible to inherit the kingdom of God (Romans 5:12 - Therefor, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death came to all men, because all sinned ; Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his only one Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."). Accepting Jesus Christ into our lives not only ensures us of the great free gift of eternal life, but it also starts working in our personal day to day life. (Revelation 3:20 - Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.) The spirit of God then leads us and guides us in our every step. He becomes our best friend, a true companion, the great healer and comforter and also blesses us in everything. As we live a life of fellowship with Jesus Christ, His character comes in us. We start to become more Christ like. Our body becomes a temple of God (John 14:23,24 - Jesus replied,"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teachings. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."). This doesn't mean that our life becomes problem free (John 16:33 - "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."), but as the problems abounds, God's grace also abounds and helps us to sail past them with joy. As Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain" a life in Christ gives us a very special joy, peace and true inner happiness.

So my dear friends, make your choice today, accept Jesus Christ into your lives, accept the good thing and God will bless you with the peace and joy that no one else can provide. When you start living a life worthy of God, He will surely deliver you and bless you with a greater Grace to run along this life of tragedies (John 15:7 - "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.").

Defeating Goliath!

1 Samuel 17:45-47 - David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands."

This passage has inspired many. It's an awesome demonstration of how faith and belief in God can be put to execution for victory, victory in personal life.

We all know the story of Goliath and David. To sum it up, Goliath, the giant of Philistine army had run havoc into Israel's army and was openly challenging them to fight him. David was a shepherd, with no military training, no arms or armor, but a great believer of God whom God said, "He is the man of my heart!"

There's lot for us to learn from this encounter between Goliath and David. If we look into verse 45 above, David said to Goliath, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." What a wonderful example of courage that faith in God brings. Our God is a living, almighty, righteous and faithful Lord. We all face this Goliath in our daily life, a Goliath in our work, a Goliath in our marriage, a Goliath in our finances, a Goliath in our health, but as David, are we ready to say, "I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty?" Are we ready to take up the challenges in our life by faith, with the belief that God is with us? Remember, our God is a good God, a God of mercy. Our God never wants us to be lacking in anything, neither to be poor, to be discouraged, to be disappointed nor to be lacking in health. He wants us to face these Goliaths as David did, and He is faithful to give us the victory as he gave to David. It's just not enough for us to believe, but we should be able to proclaim that faith too, we must remember all the wonderful things God has done to us in our past lives and praise and thank Him. We must give testimony of these to others. Our life should reflect the Christ in us, and then its God's promise that He will give us what we ask for, to defeat the Goliath in our life.

Be of good cheer, lets live the life that Christ showed us to live, to love one another, to be forgiving and refrain from sinful life and He is faithful to bless us with good health, prosperity and a peace, that only Christ can give.

Are We Listening?

John 21:1-6 - Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Our life in many ways is similar to this fishing trip, not getting any catch of fish! Isn't it that we plan and aim for many things in life but don't get them? Some aspire to reach great heights in their education, job, career, some try to be successful in their business while others try to keep their family or marriage and some struggle to find a life partner. At these times when we are disappointed, discouraged and lost all hope in spite of our best efforts, there is only one true, sincere and loving God Jesus Christ who can come to our rescue. If only we keep our ears open to hear His voice, our hearts and minds open to listen to His commands and guidance in our lives that we can get the big catch.

The love that God has for us is immeasurable. He came down leaving all the heavenly riches to dwell among us. Christ became a living sacrifice so that we may be set right with God and receive eternal life and have constant fellowship with God. Every single hair of our head is counted (Luke 12:7 - "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.") and nothing happens without God's knowledge. Isn't it more than enough to understand how much God loves us and cares for us. But then, why do we face failures and hardships. Friends, if we look into our lives, have we really tried to listen to what God is asking us to do in our lives. We always make plans and do things based on our wisdom and understanding but do we try to seek God's will in everything we do? Trust me; if we do so, then we can see the difference. God doesn't have short term plans for us nor does He lead us through shortcuts. But His plans are the best for each one of us (Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."). Let's have this faith in God and seek God's will in everything we do. God is faithful to honor our needs. Taste and see that the Lord is good. He is true to His promise and His love endures for ever.

I know that all that is written in not so easy to follow in life, but it is not impossible too. So let us try to make this a practice to ask God with a true and sincere heart just like a child looks upon his parents when he is not sure of certain things.

Finally my dear friends, God has a plan and purpose in each one of our lives. So if you listen today and give your life to Him then His promises will come true in your lives.