Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Gospel





It’s important for Christians to be able to understand, and explain the Gospel.

First, what is the Gospel? The word Gospel means Good News.

Now, what is the Good News? In order to understand the Good News, we must understand who God is. God is the Creator of the world and universes. He is eternal, he never ends. He is the beginning and the end. God created every thing in six days; he created the first humans, Adam & Eve on the sixth day.

God inspired certain men to write the Bible.

Now what is the bible? The Bible is the word of God; it has no mistakes. The Bible is the manual for our lives. The Bible contains Gods rules for our lives which we must obey to be able to go into heaven.

This now leads to the question, What is heaven? Heaven is a place where there is no death, sadness, sickness, and hunger. It is eternal paradise living with God and all people who throughout time have loved and served Him.

Now I will tell you the story of how sin began:

When God created Adam and Eve he told them that they could not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said that if they did eat the forbidden fruit they would die. Later Eve disobeyed and Adam followed in disobedience to God by eating the forbidden fruit. Since Adam was the first human created, through him we inherited a sin nature and death. We are Adams descendants and we all inherited the curse of death that he received. The wages of sin is death ;but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

God in his great mercy and love towards us gave us a way to escape the punishment for our sins.
We are all sinners and deserve to go to hell .But God loved us enough to send his only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus was born through a virgin,Mary, and lived a life a complete obedience. He lived a life that none of us can ever live and God counts his righteousness as our own. Jesus paid the price for our sins. He was beaten, and nailed to a cross and hung bled and died for us.

This is not the end of the story, because after three days, he arose from the grave, alive and showed himself to many. He then ascended into heaven where he awaits for those who believe and trust in him. Now, we also can have eternal life if we receive the salvation he offers us and walk in obedience to the laws he gives us.

God made a way for us to go to heaven, to escape the punishment of eternal damnation. We can receive his gift of salvation by recognizing that we are unworthy to stand before God because of our disobedience to his laws. We have to repent from our sins, and completely reject them. Then we must accept Jesus as our only Savior. He is the only one who can save us and not anything we do.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
II Peter 3:9

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Father & Son Retreat 2009







Last weekend my Dad and I attended our church's annual Father and Son Retreat. It was great being with my Dad and other fathers and sons. We heard many messages from men in our church. I learned many things about being a godly son, such as honoring my father, learning self control, having a pure heart and not trying to fit in with the rest of the world.

My favorite part of the activities was the Scottish Olympic games. I will write more about the retreat later. Enjoy my pictures.