Just Cris | Archive | April, 2012

Archive - April, 2012

Fear not!

April 26, 2012 in Faith 2

A couple of days ago, Michael Perkins published a beautiful post at his blog, The Handwritten (check it out here) that talked about fear. In just a few words he expressed how fear trick us into doubting the amazing plan that God has for us.

Photo credit: ©iStockphoto/yenwen

The interesting fact is that it is not the first time I get a message about letting go of my fears in a short period of time. You know when you hear or read something, and it seems like a little bulb has been turned on inside your heart, and you know that God is talking to you? Yes, this is what I am talking about.

Just to list a few messages I got: there was a chapter in the book “Untitled” by Blaine Hogan (which I reviewed here) that talked about it; the preface of the book “48 days to the work you love” by Dan Miller that I started reading a few days ago also talked about it; a sermon that one of the elders of my church preached a few weeks ago focused on the verse 36 of Mark chapter 5; and even this picture in Pinterest that I stumbled upon a few days ago! Yep, God is talking to me indeed.

So I decided to check the Scriptures and dig a little deeper into the subject of “fear”. Let’s take a look at a few examples when God tells someone to not be afraid (or “fear not”, in the classic translations):
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Be still… and wait

April 19, 2012 in Christian Life 2

About ten years ago, I was going through a tough time at work. I was praying to God asking Him to change something, because I was tired and bored with the job I was doing and I wanted Him to change something, anything. I needed something different. But nothing was happening, so I asked God why He didn’t answer my prayers.

Photo by: ©iStockphoto/plherrera

Then one day I was watching an episode of the series “Touched by an Angel” when the character Monica, who was an angel at that TV show, said this to her assignment:

“Every prayer is answered. But sometimes the answer is ‘no’. And sometimes the answer is ‘not yet’”.

Not in my wildest dreams I would have expected God to talk to me through a TV angel! But I got it. The moment she said the words I realized, without a doubt, that the answer to my prayer was ‘not yet’…

At that moment I realized that God does answer all prayers, I just didn’t “count” it unless the answer was “yes”.

And soon I realized that I have a really hard time handling the answer when it is “not yet”.

What does it mean to accept Jesus as one’s Savior?

April 12, 2012 in Christianity 2

We Christians use this expression a lot: “accept Jesus Christ as one’s Savior”. But what does it mean?

Photo by: David Shankbone (Creative Commons)

First of all, let’s look at the problem. If someone needs a savior, it is because they need to be saved from something, right? So what do all humans need to be saved from?

The quick answer is: we need to be saved from our sins. Why are our sins a problem? Because our sins keep us away from God. That means that all humans are, by default, doomed to living apart from God in this life and through all eternity.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)

The Bible refers to being away from God as “death”. So even though a person may be “physically” alive (breathing, heart beating, etc), spiritually they are dead if they are away from God:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1)

The hardest day ever

April 6, 2012 in Christianity 2

When we think about Easter, we often think about what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Photo by: ©iStockphoto/mphillips007

If you think about the disciples of Jesus who lived through those days, maybe you can imagine the mixed emotions that they felt.

On Friday, Jesus was taken by the guards. Then He was tortured, crucified, and then He died.

The One they were following for a while now, the One they believed was the promised Messiah, was now dead. They were hopeless, desperate, afraid. They probably lost their faith.

At this point, we usually fast forward to Sunday, when Jesus resurrected and many of His disciples saw Him. In a matter of seconds, they went from feeling total hopelessness to extreme joy.

Jesus was alive! If they ever had any doubts, now they were all gone.

But we often don’t mention Saturday. When we talk about Easter, we usually skip from Jesus’ death to His resurrection. But unfortunately to the disciples, they weren’t able to fast forward through that Saturday.

Easter was not an afterthought

April 3, 2012 in Christianity 8

God created man. Man fell, by disobeying God. The perfect relationship between creator and creature was broken. What could be done?

Photo by: deko (Creative Commons)

When God created man and gave him free will, He knew that He was giving man the opportunity to choose between having a relationship with Him or walking away. Man chose to walk away (Genesis chapter 3). That choice affected every human being that descended from the original couple, so everyone is born apart from God.

What was God willing to do to allow man to have access to Him again? The answer is: everything!

From the beginning, God knew that what man did by himself, by choosing to break the relationship between them, man could never mend by himself. No ordinary man would ever be good enough and worthy enough to be able to do it.

So He did the unthinkable: He sacrificed Himself.