In many belief systems, you need to work towards your reward. For example you need to work to ascend, work to raise your vibration, work to ensure your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, work to burn off your Karma, or work to cultivate loving kindness and move towards enlightenment to escape Samsara.
Yesterday I was watching a film called The Atheist Delusion where Ray Comfort asked questions about who created the universe to students on a University Campus. What was very telling to me, was that none of them actually knew that there is a free gift, a way to instantly make it to heaven. Christianity is different, it’s about faith, not works. All you need to do is believe. It can happen in an instant, like it did when Jesus was on the cross when a thief that was hung with him suddenly believed authentically in his heart that Jesus really was the son of God. It didn’t matter what crimes he had committed in his life, God was willing to forgive all, simply because he believed.
I share this just because I had no idea why Jesus died on the cross and none of these students did either. He did it to give us a free gift. He died to take our punishment for all the stealing and lying and living against God’s commandments that don’t make much sense to us when we are living so far away from God.
Jesus died so we could be given the Holy Spirit, kind of like a direct phone line to God and though he doesn’t always speak in words, we get a knowing and a nudging. The Holy Spirit does change us. It has to be an authentic belief where we listen to God and his guidance about what is best to live a joyful and fulfilling life, living according to his law, doing his work to save the lost who do not know this story. So there is work, it is just that it comes after salvation, through a supernatural relationship, not as a means to achieve it.
God offers a free gift, but he won’t force it on anyone because he wants a real relationship with people, not one that involves force. That is why authentic faith is so important in genuine Christianity.
I got the sense as I looked at these student’s faces as Ray talked to them that they realised that while they thought of themselves as a ‘good’ person their consciences said otherwise. Their consciences were running from God because they thought that they were in trouble. Nobody had told them that they can be forgiven.
In an inversion of what Christmas is meant to be about (if you believe Jesus was born on Christmas Day which many Christians actually don’t) it’s all about the physical gifts, the rushing around how to show our loved ones how much we love them while spending lots of money and getting into debt.
In a Christmas Disney advert Children held the letters of the word ‘Santa’ and had to get in order to spell it. But oops, they accidentally got in the wrong order and spelled the word ‘Satan’ instead. Laughs all round. He’s just a fictional character, that seems to get an awful lot of airtime, and might just be one of the most prevalent fictional characters to be portrayed in our art, music, literature and film. Do you ever wonder why? As the years go by God appears more and more absent, but yet the presence of the devil intensifies. It’s starting to look a lot like the end times.
If you look around the world you will see that this world is in trouble. According to the Bible ‘soon’ (in God’s timing, we don’t know how long ‘soon’ is, though there are many theories) he will bring his judgment on the earth and then rebuild a new heavens and a new earth.
There is perhaps only one reason we are all still here and that is to learn about this free gift. As it says in the book of Matthew, ‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.’
I pray that anyone reading this may open their heart and become curious to learn about the evidence that Jesus really is the Son of God and came to earth to die as a sacrifice for our sins.
And if you like a prayer to invite Jesus into your life, send me a pm.