It’s Easter Saturday. I am contemplating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here is one of my thoughts.
There is a smorgasbord of religions around the world on offer to humanity. Atheists say none of them are real. Each religion’s adherents say they are all wrong except the one they believe. Seems to present a significant dilemma to a person when it comes to where they spend eternity.
So what gives me strong confidence in my faith in Jesus Christ?
Well not all religions are the same. In fact, Christianity has an interesting distinctive. Put that aside for a minute though……all religions are the same in the fact that they deal with a deity, mankind, death and the afterlife. But the vast majority of religions all lift up the power of mankind to either save himself or at least contribute significantly to his salvation. If you visit Mecca, if you are baptized by the right ancestors of a religion’s founders, if you knock on doors, if you don’t smoke, if you give money, pray enough etc. At the same time as empowering mankind for his own salvation, all but one religion reduces who Jesus is, from Son of God to prophet, teacher, good leader. So in summary…..Man more powerful. Jesus less powerful..
So here is the Christian distinctive. The bible teaches that man was unable to save himself. So weak in his sin that he contributed nothing toward his salvation. And yet at the same time it was all Jesus.
Romans 8:3
The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
So in Summary….Jesus all powerful….Man no power.
Let’s go deeper. Jesus as the Son of God has all power in His love and grace to save a wretched sinner like me.
And for that I will praise him for eternity.
My Name is Peter Pilt and I have been a Christian for 40 years. I can do nothing for my salvation. Jesus did it all on the cross.
All.
peterpilt 
Interesting. As a non believer in the afterlife, but with a strong Christian upbringing, I was trying to explain Easter to my 9 year old grandson. He knew the basics, from school no doubt, not from his parents I am sure, but struggled with Jesus rising from the dead on Sunday. I tried to explain that Jesus rose to Heaven, whereupon my grandson said “I don’t believe that”. Well, Ok, since I didn’t believe that either, I started to explain living by the Christian beliefs such as kindness to others, forgiveness, being as good a person as you can be. As an example I mentioned people in his class at school who may be lesser physically or mentally than him and how important it is to be kind to them and help them. He assured me he does, but said others are sometimes very nasty to those people. I then said, well, they are not being very Christian are they? I hope I was on the right track as a believer in Christianity as a way of life.
If we are a born again believer, that is changed in our human spirit, or nature, we should never call ourselves ‘sinners’ again; it would be denying Christs work and our declared commitment to Him as Lord! We are now accepted into the Family of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We may transgress out of our souls but Hebb 8:11 says ” their iniquities I will remember no more”. Therefore to be good ambassadors to Him we should renew our souls with His word and get our thinking in line with His word..
John 3:16 for God so loved the world etc .Is a good place to start. This is a foundation truth, Gen 1 is the introduction to the creation which is oposed at school. Sometimes it is difficult to know where to start. A Gospel seed will stimulate questions in the soul which will rquire an answer that in turn will stimulate more questions. As it says in Isaiah 28:10-13 ”’precept upon precept and line upon line , here a little there a little”; its an ongoing seeking. I have 13 grandchildre and 14 great granchildren. I try to remain connected in relationship to them all that I may help with their spiritual growth but with scattered families and spouses from different basckgrounds it is not easy. Pray the Lord will keep them close to Him.