Why know God?
I heard a talk one day when a man said he’d seen a sign on a wall in Belfast, during the struggles in Ireland, which said;
NO HOPE – NO GOD, and underneath it someone had written, NO GOD – NO HOPE.
It stuck in my mind because for me, without God, there is no hope as mankind seems totally unable to live in peace with each other. It prompts me to get to know God, because how can you believe in and trust a God you don’t know or understand? Thankfully, God has given me the opportunity over the past few years to get to know him better. I have spent an hour or so almost every morning reading the bible and listening to praise songs.
I have learned that God truly is a loving, Heavenly Father and I wanted to share it. I passed some notes on to people at church, but still felt I needed to do more. So, I started praying ‘Father, how can I use these things I’ve learned? I know you’ve not given them to me to hide away but to share.’ Then, one day, a lady at church said “you could do a blog you know.” My first thought was, well I have no idea how to even start a blog and tried to dismiss it, but over a couple of weeks the thought persisted, so here I am! Glory to God! (Please forgive any basic mistakes).
I’ll start with Why the cross? Because It seems that a ‘loving’ God would be unable to allow such a barbaric thing to happen, especially to his only begotten Son, (child born from his own seed).
Why did Jesus have to suffer terrible beatings and be put on a cross to die?
Well it’s all about the blood, which sounds horrendous, but the first thing to understand is that God does things differently to us - Isaiah 55:8 tells us that ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways’. His motive though is always love!
In the past God saw how badly mankind behaved and could not watch it any longer. To begin with, He nearly wiped us off the face of the earth, (Genesis 6:5-7), but because He saw something good in Noah, he could not let him die, (Genesis 6:8-9).
When God struck down the firstborn of the Egyptians for not letting His people go, He instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and smear the blood over the doors and windows of their houses, (Exodus 12:7), and if their household was too small, probably meaning too poor, they were to share with their nearest neighbour.
This blood was a sign to God to pass over that household and not harm anyone inside.
When God gave Moses the law, showing them what sin was and what the punishment would be, being a loving God, He gave them a way out of the punishment. He said they could *atone for it, by sacrificing animals saying, ‘the blood of the sacrifice atoned for their sin.’ (Deuteronomy 21:8, 2 Chronicles 29:24, Exodus 20:24 & 24:7-8, Leviticus 16:15-16)
Hebrews 9:22 says ‘without blood there is no forgiveness’ – that is how God works. Now I don’t know why he works that way, but I have learned over the years to trust Him. The problem was that people would sacrifice then go right back to sinning. So eventually, after sending many prophets to try to help them understand, he sent his only begotten Son to be the final, perfect sacrifice, so that Jesus’ blood would atone for the sins of all mankind, once and for all time.
Redeemed like a gift card
We are redeemed by the blood of Christ in the same way that we use gift cards.
When we receive a gift card, we have not earned it, there is nothing we have done or can do to earn it, it is given to us as a gift all we need to do is use it!
God made us, and we belong to him. However, we turned our backs on him and went our own way. So, to bring us back to himself, our God gave us - (again, we haven’t earned it), he gave us forgiveness through Jesus on the cross. Through his blood, Jesus redeemed us for our Heavenly Father, and he did it willingly, he was not forced.
Our redemption is a gift, given by grace from our Father in heaven, so that he can once again have a relationship with his earthly children – us, all we have to do is believe!
He loves us that much!
This is how I understand my God.
Notes:
These are my personal thoughts – how I understand God. I feel that I am on the right track but, it is important that you get yourself a bible and read it for yourself because, not only am I human and liable to misunderstand some things, God wants a personal relationship with you, so that you can learn to fully trust in him, because He loves you. That’s how He works
Praise the Lord for all he has done.
(*Atone Means to make amends and be reconciled).