Sunday, March 4, 2012

Jesus Saves

As I was reading Leviticus today, I was thinking about all of the rules that God was giving to the Israelites. Starting from chapter 11, God talks about clean and unclean things, what to do and what not to do. As I was reading this, I was overwhelmed with the thought of having to do all of those things to be clean. How is everyone supposed to remember everything and do as God told them to? Then after reading some chapters, I started getting a sense of joy...

The thing is, we do not have to do all of this stuff to be saved! It's not even about being a good person and doing the right things anymore! We are all sinners, yet Christ died for us while we were still one!  Once we believe that Christ died and rose again for us and trust God, then we are saved by the grace of God. The coolest thing is, is once we do that, we are able to have a relationship with Him. He gives us the Bible, and it's basically his love letter to us. We are able to pray to Him and talk to Him. He puts the Holy Spirit inside of us and we are now a new person! And God did this in spite of us being "unclean."

Christ literally took every single person's penalty of sin on himself. He literally endured all of that pain that we truly deserved, therefore we are saved from eternal death. Think about how much punishment and pain you probably deserve. Did you think about it? Now think of all of that pain times the 6 billion people living on earth. Do you think you could endure it? Definetly not! But Christ did. It's so hard to grasp it, but it's so true and so amazing to think about. And now we're able to have a relationship with God and live in heaven with Him forever.

Romans 5:8- "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 10:9- "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

1 Peter 2:24- “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast."

Do you have this gift of God? Are you saved by Christ? This is literally the greatest news in the whole world, that he saved us from eternal death and gave us the ablility to be in a relationship with God. Don't neglect what Christ has done for YOU!