Wait? You're a what?

Yes, yes I am a Christian. I have been since I was about five or six. My parents were Christians since they were in their 20's so I grew up in a Christian home. When I was younger I knew about my parents' Christian faith but it wasn't until I was like five or six that I truly understood that I needed to believe it for myself. So one day I asked mom tons of questions about it and she explained it all to me and at that young age I became a Christian. I got baptized a few years after I got saved and today I am just taking life a day at a time trying to be open to the Lord's leading.

That is my (very!) condensed version of my testimony. But I realized that even though I have been saying I have been a Christian since I started this blog a few years ago, I have never actually shown what that means. So if you don't mind, I will do that now (in the form of a letter) :)

Dear Friend,

Last time we talked you asked me about what I believed spiritually. In this letter I want to explain what the foundation of my belief system is: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Firstly, God created you and loves you. Psalm 86:15, “But You, O Lord, are a God merciful…and abounding in steadfast love.” He wants to have a personal relationship with you. However, because everyone sins, we are all separated from God. Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin means that we have disobeyed God’s commands and not met God’s perfect standard, which is like people trying to throw a baseball to the moon. No one will ever reach it; we will all “fall short”. Due to this sin we will all die physically and spiritually. Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” That is what we earn from sinning. It’s like working; when you do a job you get paid—that’s what you earn. Because we have sinned, we all earn death, both physically and spiritually. Dying spiritually means that we will be separated from God forever. Therefore we can’t live eternally with a perfect God in Heaven because we are imperfect and are instead doomed to Hell. Because we couldn't get to God (that’s the bad news), God came to us (the good news!). God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die our sin-earned death in our place. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect, sinless life, died on a cross for our sin, and was buried. After three days in the tomb God resurrected Him from the dead and therefore Christ defeated death. Luke 24:6-7, “He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you…‘[Christ] must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Christ died a sacrificial death, which means that Christ died in our place. He took the punishment that we deserved. He didn't stay dead, like I stated before, but God raised Him up from the dead after three days. Because Christ defeated death, He has the power to save us from our eternal punishment. If we understand what Christ did, accept that it is true, and place our trust in Christ alone to save us from our sins we can be saved! Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Let me illustrate this for you. Say you have never seen or used a chair before. You go to another country and they show you this weird chair-thing. They say that if you sit in it, it will hold you up. You UNDERSTAND what the chair does. Now let’s say that you look it over and you’re like, “Yeah, I can see that. I believe that this chair could hold me up.” You have now ACCEPTED that what they say about the chair is true. But have you trusted in it yet? No! Once you fully sit down in the chair so that all your weight is resting on it that is when you have TRUSTED in the chair to hold you up. The same is with Christ. Now, you have to understand that Christ alone can save us from eternal punishment. We can’t earn our way to Heaven by doing good things nor is there any other way other than understanding what Christ did, accepting that, and trusting in Him and what He did on the cross. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Once we are truly trusting in Christ alone for our salvation, saving us from our sin-earned eternal punishment, is when we have the assurance that we will live with Christ forever in Heaven when we die. 1 John 5:11, “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”

            I will explain more in my next letter, but in this one I just wanted to start with the foundation of my belief. If you have any questions don’t be afraid to write back!

            Much love,

                       Sarah

(As a side note: This letter was actually a paper that my roommate, Shelbi, and I wrote for a assignment for one of our Bible classes. I would suggest doing it yourself! Give yourself only two typed pages and try to fit the gospel in those two pages using illustrations, clear thinking, and Biblical references. It makes you think of how to clearly give the Gospel in a limited time frame, which is a good tool to have today. Because everyone is always running around and so busy, we may not have an hour to talk through the Gospel with someone. If God opened the door to talk through the Gospel with someone and you only had ten minutes what would you say? Think about this and what your response would be...and maybe even write something out so you have a resource you could go to. God will open doors for us to share our faith. It is our job to be prepared for them when they come.)