Verse of the Day - 1 John 4:15

All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ~ 1 John 4:15 (NLT)

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Well, there you have it -- the essence of Christianity. This is the bare bones, the bottom line.

Who Jesus is and who you believe He is has everything to do with your relationship to God. Believing He was a good teacher is good, but if that's all He is to you, well, "Houston, we have a problem." If you say He was a humanitarian, you'd be right -- but if that concept isn't coupled with His divine nature, you've reduced Him to a good-will ambassador, a Volunteer of America poster child, instead of the Son of God, come to earth, to rescue a dying world, needing salvation and truth and love and wisdom.

You miss the main point if you miss his divinity. And God says, If you choose not to believe in who Jesus is, then we're done here.

See, here's the deal. We, as sin-sick humans, have no access to a holy God. He cannot allow sin in His presence, so we are unfortunately cut off because of our sin. But God, in His loving grace, made a way for our sins to be eternally forgiven, through the shed blood (since the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:22) of His Son, who is pure and holy just like His Father, without sin. His sacrifice was sufficient because He is God. If you believe He is God, then His sacrifice is applicable to you. If you don't believe He is God, then to you, He was just one of millions crucified on a Roman cross a few millenia ago, and His blood is no different than yours or mine, or any other person who's walked the face of the earth.

There's no doubt that faith is a major player in this whole thing. It's a fantastic claim for God to come to earth in the form of a human, to live a humble life only to die a cruel death. But if this is hard for you to swallow, I need to point you to a place that may help you get it. Go down the path to the tomb where they laid Jesus after He died. Talk to Mary, Peter and John. Interview the Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb with their lives. Ask them about the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Talk to Thomas, who like many, couldn't quite get the fact that Jesus was God and that death couldn't hold Him down in the grave -- that is, until He heard the familiar voice, and saw the tell-tale scars of the nails in His hands. Then, all Thomas could say was, "My Lord, and my God." That was enough. John testifies in today's verse, that that is enough.

We can heap alot of legalism and ritual on top of our faith, rules and regulations that can obscure our vision. We need to be sure that our vision is clear about who Jesus is, bottom line. He is the Son of God, the Living God. Do you believe it? I pray that you can embrace this simple, yet profound, truth about Jesus, because it is the foundation of eternal life with God, who loves you deeply and desires a relationship with you that can begin here on earth and will never end.

Love,
Joelene