Hi Everyone,
I hope this blog finds you well. I was reflecting on how God used the law and the old covenant to teach us how we needed to be saved from our own depravity.
God’s been giving me a lot of opportunity to share Jesus with the people around me and blessing me with some great encouragement as well. I’ve also been encountering the typical attacks, rejection and arguments that we face when approaching someone with the gospel. Many people don’t want to hear it, are unwilling or uninterested in discussing spirituality at all or are just burnt out on Jesus because they’ve had so many people try to shove Him down their throats.
I don’t want to be one of those people, so I’ve been seeking the Lord and asking for help to share his Love and free gift of forgiveness without ruining with the junk that people ruin it with.
The best way I can think to do that is to stay in prayer and keep reading the Bible. In John 3 (An obvious place to end up), Jesus tells us pretty clearly what the plan is and why. Take a look at the link if you want more information. But basically, if we’re honest with ourselves, we like to do bad things. We’re selfish, self-absorbed, petty, materialistic, vain, greedy etc. Jesus came to reveal that truth to us and we can either pretend that those traits are ‘okay’ because everyone else is like that, or accept that they’re flaws in our society and we’re incapable on our own to overcome it. But God, Jesus, has the Love for us and has already overcome the world.
John 3 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%203&version=NKJV
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”