My Faith and my relationship to Jesus Christ is a big part of my life - it defines who I am! Unfortunately that subject oftentimes is not popular. Many people are "against church" for various reasons. Many of those reasons however are misunderstandings and not Gods will. Therefore I urge everybody to not just believe hearsay but inform yourself first hand! Gods word, the bible, was written for us to get to know God and find out about his goodness towards us. I will address some of those misunderstandings furtherdown on this page because It is my sincere wish for everybody to see how much God loves us!!! But why am I telling you all this? Should I not keep my Faith to myself? Absolutely not! The matter is too important to keep it to myself: It is a matter of life and death! That is why I would like to pose the following question to you:
Do you have everlasting life?
This is the most important question in your life - so let`s take a closer look at what it actually means: When a person has eternal life that person will spend eternity in God`s Kingdom (commonly called heaven). So those who have eternal life will live forever - but those who don`t have eternal life will not go to "heaven"! God promises us eternal life through Jesus Christ. Every true Christian has eternal life - but we are not Christians by simply going to Church. Baptism doesn`t make us Christians either! And we are not Christians because we are a good people. So what makes us a Christian?!?
The answer to the question is: Jesus Christ! "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6)
Let`s see what God himself tells us in his word:
You see, we are all sinners as Romans 3:23 tells us: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God". It was neverGod`s will for us to fall into sin - it was our own fault (I guess we all know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden). Anyways, because of that sin we are unclean in the eyes of God. And God cannot let anything (or anyone) unclean into his Holy Kingdom ("heaven").
Instead the penalty for our sins is death: " For the wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23 . We all "die" - but some of us go on to have eternal life in God`s Kingdom while others do not! So how can we escape that penalty and receive eternal life instead? The answer to the question is: Jesus Christ! "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6)
Jesus spend his time on earth without sinning even once! He is the only one who can save you because he is the only one who never sinned! He paid the penalty for everybody who trusts him: Romans 5:8 states:"But God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". So Jesus died in our place and took our guilt upon himself! So what must we do to apply Christ`s sacrifice to us? How do we get eternal life? John 3:16 says:"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life".Nobody can cleanse himself or herself from sin! No church membership or good deeds can bring salvation! But trusting in Jesus Christ will give you eternal life!!! Trust in him that he died for your sins: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him"
As you can see - God is a loving and caring God! But God is so great that he only helps those who want his help! He gave us the freedom of choice! He could have made puppets out of us but he did not! Instead he gave us a free will! He gives to gift of eternal life to all who trust in Jesus Christ! So what makes us a Christian?!? Trusting in Jesus Christ for Salvation!!!
Now you might say "That is too easy"... But the great thing about our God is that we all have a chance of forgiveness cause we all need his grace!
So in order to receive salvation we need to trust in Jesus! But is that all God wants from us? What happens after we get salvation and eternal life? What about good deeds and sin? Well let me put it this way: To trust in Jesus Christ is the first step in our relationship with Christ! After becoming a Christian we try to do good and to act pleasing to God.We don`t do good deeds to be saved - we do good deeds because we are saved!!!
Cowboy Church - Wedding Service
You can read more about my faith below as I am explaining some of the unfortunate misconceptions aboout God. But please also make sure to check out our ministry site for cowgirls and cowboys in Europe:
Common misconceptions
As mentioned in the beginning there are some misunderstandings about God that I would like to address.You may wonder why this is important to me but unfortunately oftentimes I hear things like: " I am against God or church because...". Unfortunately the reasons why people are against God are not even true. (International readers: Those are issues that people in Germany have and they might not apply to other countries)
1. "Church is boring"
Well, the church I attend is not boring. Maybe it is because it is an American church and we do a lot of things together and family is important. The bible tells us that Christians are supposed to be family for a reason. Fellowships are important to us and there is always something going on: From movie nights to football games or parties...An interesting observation: I know quite a few foreign exchange students who spend a year in the USA. They had no interest in church before but when they came back from the U.S. they loved it. Churches in the USA offer a lot of interesting activities - no matter if teenagers, senior citicen, male or female. Churches offer anything from movie night to their own baseball or football team!!! In cowboy states they even have Cowboy Churches. Those are very popular amongst cowboys and cowgirls. Their worship music is country and many Cowboy Churches even have their own Rodeo arena, host rodeo practices and put on their won rodeos! So no...church is not boring!
2. "God is not good because he allows evil to happen"
A part of Gods goodness towards us is that he did not make us puppets. Instead he gave us a brain and the power to make choices and decisions. Our heavenly father is certainly against all evil but it is the choice of those evil doers and not God`s choice and therefore not his fault. How can we blame God when he specifically forbids us to do evil? Over and over he tells us in his word - the bible - not to do evil! And yet people disobey him! How can we blame God when people despise his will? Could God not prevent crimes? Well, do we want to be puppets on strings that God "plays" with?!? And when should he interfere? Every little actions can lead to devastating suffering and God would have to interfere with our will over and over again and all we would be is puppets without our own decisions! And who would like that?!? And where is the line? God has decided to give us the power of decisionmaking and that we are not his puppets but his children instead! Every mature human is responsible forhis actions, not God!
This section is still under construction. Coming soon:
3. "I am not interested in Christianity because God does not allow me to drink alcohol"
4. "I am against church because they did bad things like crusades" - Coming soon...
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