I have to give you some meaningful words too, so here you find a few thoughts of mine, more or less well thought-out.
I am a Christian, meaning my faith is based directly on the Bible, which to me is the word of God and therefore all true. I will try to explain what my faith is and how great God has been, is and will be to us, if we believe in him. And I will write some thoughts down, when I think of them.
To begin with I believe that God created the universe, as the first chapters of the Bible says, on seven days. I find no reason to doubt that, because when you have accepted the fact that God exists, he can create the world in seven days as well as a few billion years. God made everything, planets, grasshoppers and he made human beings! He made us in his own image, which means there is a glimpse of God in us, but where not part of God. It also means that we in the beginning were without sin and could be close to God. But there was something evil, the devil, who made Adam and Eve do exactly what God had forbidden. After that day none of us are without sin, it is in us from the day we are born.
In spite of these sins God has not stopped loving us. In fact, directly after the fall of Adam and Eve, God promises to send someone to crush evil and that promise God gives over and over again threw his prophets, until it is carried out.
Then Jesus comes and fullfills all prophecys. We believe that Jesus was God and human at the same time. He lived here on earth like us, but he was the Son of God and he knew what he had to do and what was going to happen. The Christian God can be hard to understand, and I don't think we can fully do that, but we can know some things about him. According to the Bible God has three "sides". He is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are separate but still dependent on each other and together they are one God. God is one. I think that often when you talk about God, you mean the Father, because his in some way the allmighty and the creator. God is complex.
Jesus lived in Israel for about 33 years. He travelled around talking and teaching people about the salvation, and gathered many followers, especially the twelve disciples, who lived and travelled with him wherever he went. He also claimed to be the Messiah, the person to fullfill Gods promise and all prophecys, and since many jews didn't believe him, he was crucified and died. No one could make such a claim, which is understandable, it must have been very hard to see God as a human being. (I wonder what my reaction had been.) The disciples were devastated, and they didn't remember that Jesus had said that he would rise from the dead. But he did, although they didn't believe it at first, and he showed himself for them and gave the disciples and all Christians after them the task to missionize. Translated from swedish(Matthew 28:18-19):
"To me is given all power in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go out and make all peoples my disciples, by baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to follow all my commands to you. And see, I'm with you all days until the end of time."
Here Jesus clearly states that he is God and that he will be with us always. Since then and until Jesus comes back, the Spirit is here and he helps us to live as Christians, he gives us the power to stand up for our faith, and to talk about it with people we meet. This is vital because when Jesus comes back, all of us will be judged, and since we all are sinful, we must believe that Jesus will take the punishment instead of us. If we believe in Jesus we will be saved and have an eternal life in heaven with God. If not we will be punished for our sins, and go to hell. This is horrible but there is no doubt in the Bible that it's true. There are only these two options, thats why it's so vital to missionize and let God lead more people to him.
There is a lot to discuss, concerning Christianity and religion, because it is real for everyone. Everyone believes in something. Here I try to write some personal thoughts down, when I think of them. Please do the same yourself and maybe start a discussion at the notice board(see the link to the left). The dates below are the day I wrote it. Most of my thoughts I write in swedish, but I'm happy to translate more of them if you're interested.
99/05/13: How important is prayer? As a Christian there is no demands to pray regularly, well actually there is no direct demands at all, to be a Christian all you need to do is believe that Jesus is God and has died and risen to give you the forgiveness for your sins. This gives us a freedom that implies a big responsibility. And to handle this responsibility I think that it's important that our relationship with God is very close. That is why I'm certain, although I myself often fail, that we should take a great deal of time to nurse that relationship. And on what do you build it? On love, that comes by getting to know God, and just as you talk and spend time with people that you want to get to know, we have to pray, talk to God, and read the Bible, which is Gods words to us. I also think that we need to make time for God to answer, to take silent moments and just listen to God. He has promised to answer all our prayers, we won't always hear or understand the answer, but he will answer and we can have two-way communication with God. He is a person and he loves us, without doubt, but we must build a relationship to love him back!
If you think I have got something wrong or for any other reason or no reason at all you're welcome to contact me or to use the notice board.
Latest update 1999/05/13 by Jon Andersson