Jesus offers freedom and hope.

ok but does this only works for christians?

 

Kthnxbye

 

How do you "surrender your life" to him? He hasn't been around for about 2000 years.

 

There's a man living in your heart? How are you alive?

 

As I understand it (I am not trying to preach or anything), Jesus alive today living in someone's heart, is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit - the deeper spiritual awareness - living within each person.

 

Not just faith. There's a lot of historical evidence as well.

 

Another point: the Bible says to "test everything and hold on to what is true." It does NOT say "believe everything in this book on blind faith, or God will punish you."

That's a common and incredibly dangerous misconception of Christianity. Other religious tell you to believe them on faith. The Bible does not. It emphasizes the importance and value of faith, yes, but if you look at the life of Jesus, he didn't get angry when people questioned him. He answered their questions and showed them miracles and fulfilled prophecy to show them that what he was saying was true. He didn't ever expect people to just believe what he said with no proof.

That's so important to know. I feel like most people who haven't read the Bible don't realize this.

I would NEVER trust anyone who tells me I need to believe them without any questions or evidence. That is an obvious mark of an untrustworthy person. Just using basic logic, if someone refuses to let you ask questions or give you evidence in any way, they're probably lying. People who are telling the truth don't need to be afraid of questions. So I would never trust someone who tells me I can't ask questions. That's something other religions say, but Christianity definitely does not. If you actually read the Bible and study and understand it, you see that God is constantly confirming people's doubts and giving them evidence and answering their questions.

God does NOT require us to believe everything in faith. He says the exact opposite. He says to test everything and hold onto what is true. Other religions, such as Islam, tell you not to test God and that it's a great sin to do so. That, to me, is an automatic sign that someone is lying.

 

Also, when the Bible speaks of faith, it's not talking about believing something naively. It's talking about having faith in someone you know and trust. It's saying now that you know and trust Jesus, because of the evidence he has given you that he is God, NOW you should have faith in him.

In the same way that I can have some amount of faith in my husband, because I know him and trust him and he has proven himself to be trustworthy. I'm not expected to have faith in a total stranger. God doesn't ask that of you either.

 

I mean, think about Thomas. He doubted that Jesus was really live and he needed more confirmation than the other disciples. Did Jesus say no? Did he tell him he needs to have more faith? Well, yes, he did say he should have had more faith in him at that point, BUT he ALSO went to Thomas and let him put his hands in his wounds, becyase that's what Thomas said he needed in order to believe that Jesus had risen.

Let me just repeat it for those who still aren't hearing: God does not want blind faith! He wants you to know Him and trust Him because He has proven Himself trustworthy and given you the evidence to understand that through His word.

 

That's good @Castielle , I admire your skepticism. So do you agree that atheism should be the default belief until one has seen evidence that warrants belief in a God?

 

I believe that the existence of such an intricate system such as the universe, is enough evidence to suggest a Creator. So no. I would say Theism should be the default, and when you look into who that Creator may be, Jesus is the clear answer when you follow the evidence.

EDIT: to illustrate this point, if you look at a building, how do you know it had a builder? How do you know a book had an author? If even those small things can't possibly have just sprung up out of nothing with no intelligent design, then how can you think the entire universe could have come together without design? I don't use this term lightly, but I honestly think that's just logically insane to believe. I don't see how believing in a Creator supposedly takes more faith than believing the universe didn't have an intentional design. I would have to have absolute crap ton of faith to believe that a book just came together on it's own, with coherent words and sentences and page numbers, etc. How much more so when we are speaking of the whole universe?

 

Jesus is an individual, he is not an incarnation of the Divine. I do not say that to demean him or his achievements. A single person cannot be the Divine, God accounts for all life.

 

Jesus most certainly is God. I'm not sure what you consider your religion to be, but if you don't believe in the divinity of Christ, you are not saved.

I also find it absolutely absurd when people say they don't believe Jesus is God, but they think he was a great man. If Jesus isn't God, then he was either crazy or a liar and a blasphemer. You can't say that he isn't God and also think he was a good person.