“The Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection”

“The Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection”— R Nelson

BIBLE REFERENCE:

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6.

ENCOURAGING WORD:

The other night as I was watching “The Hallmark Channel” on television, there was a statement made that really touched my heart. The show was about a young woman that had cancer of the liver. The only way for her to survive was to receive a donor from a living source. Well, to make a long story short, she did receive a liver transplant from a young man that stepped up and gave her new life. The father of the young lady said to the young man with tears in his eyes, and I quote, “you were in our lives, but now, you are in our hearts.” My friends, this hit me like a ton of bricks. There are many people that feel that they have Jesus in their lives, but unless Jesus Christ is in your heart, you are missing out on what salvation is all about. When Jesus went to the cross willingly, He gave us all new a life. But to receive this gift of a new life, you have to accept it. What if for some reason this young woman in the story decided to reject the liver transplant, she would have surely died, but because she did accept this gift from the young man, she had a second chance at life. We are all infected with a serious illness called sin and unless we receive the free gift of grace, we will die in our sins and the price of sin is death, but the gift of everlasting life goes through Jesus, and Jesus alone. We read in1 Samuel 16:7b; “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” We will not be judged by the things we do; we will be judged by the intent of our hearts. I had to share this wonderful story before I got into the Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If there is one aspect of knowledge that is agreed upon by most religions, it is the birth of Jesus Christ. Almost everybody is aware of Jesus Christ, but the problem is very few people truly understand who Jesus really was and why He had to enter His creation in the first place. The birth in and of itself was a miracle right from the beginning. The Holy Spirit entered into Mary’s womb as we read in Matthew 1:18; “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus, God incarnate, had to enter His creation to reconcile for the sins of mankind that was forfeited in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose evil over good. Ever since that time, man has been infested with a horrible disease called “SIN” positive. We are all born with a sin nature whether you accept that truth or not. The birth of Jesus also set up the Gregorian calendar as we know it today. The year that He was born started at year number 1AD. Here we are 2021 years later, and those that know and love Him, still celebrate His birth to this day. The birth of Jesus Christ was just the beginning of the road to salvation.

As for the life of Jesus, we hear very little about Him until He reaches the age of about thirty. The last time we hear about Him up to that point, when He was twelve years old and He was already teaching the scriptures of the Old Testament. The following scriptures tell of this event, Luke 2:41-52 “Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house? “But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” This is the last time that we hear about Jesus until He is introduced as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” spoken of by “John the Baptist.” We read this in John 1:29; “The next day John (The Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” It is then that Jesus began teaching the Gospel of Salvation. For three years He was teaching His disciples that one day He would be put to death, but until it actually happened, the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying. They really didn’t know what Jesus meant by Luke 9:22; “saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” There are probably seventy-five to one hundred miracles recorded in the Gospels that we are aware of. We read in John 21:2; “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” We only see a glimpse of all that Jesus did during the short time He spent here on earth. What most religious sects do not understand is this, Jesus did not teach any specific religion, He taught the Gospel of salvation the way it was meant to be taught. As a matter of fact, Jesus was the most anti-religious person that evet walked the earth. Before you start getting all bent out of shape with what I just said, think about this, if Jesus were going to teach any religion, it would have been Judaism. He was a Jew and that is what He would have taught, but He did not teach Judaism or any other manmade religion. If you are not learning right from the Bible, then you are most likely not hear the truth of God’s word. I can made this statement with complete honesty because I was brought up in a mainline denomination, (I won’t say which one), but until I stepped out in faith and read the Bible with intense studies, it was then that I realized that I was not getting the truth of the scriptures as they were supposed to be understood. So much of what I was taught was being allegorized because the teachers of this particular religion did not know the truth. I won’t expand on this anymore other than to say this, read the Bible and see for yourself how mislead you have been. You need to do your own studies and see for yourself what I am taking about. Please do not take my word for it, let the Holy Spirit guide you through all truth.

Now we get to the climax of the life of Jesus Christ. We read in John 13:87; “Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Jesus Christ came into the world for one reason: to make it possible for us to be forgiven of our sins so we can go to Heaven when we die. Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:10; “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Jesus came to pay a price that he did not owe because we owe a price that we cannot pay. He came to save us from the power of death that we all deserve. We all need to understand that in Jesus Christ there is eternal life, without Jesus, there is eternal death. There really are no other choices and the choice is yours to make. The death, burial and resurrection had to happen in order that we might be saved of all of our sins and be reconciled back to God so He can restore things back to the way they were meant to be. That day is coming, so you need to ask yourself, “Do I want to be part of the Kingdom of God or do I want to be cast into the “lake of burning fire” where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth as we read in Matthew 13:50; “And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” I do not like speaking on this topic of what will happen to those who reject Gods truth, but everybody needs to know the truth whether they like it or not.

Now, the last and the most important reason for the life of Jesus Christ (The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.) This is why “Easter” as the pagans refer to it or “Resurrection Sunday” which is more appropriate, had to happen. If Jesus had not resurrected to heaven to sit at the right hand of Father, then those that make up the Christian body are men most miserable and our beliefs are in vain. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:19; where the Apostle Paul says the following, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” Either Jesus is in heaven making intersession for us or He is not. Our eternal life rests on the truth that Jesus Christ died For Our Sins, Was Buried and Raised According to the Scriptures. In one of the most famous chapters in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he asserts,1 Corinthians 15:3; “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. This is the Gospel in a nutshell, simple as it gets. If the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus never happened, then there are no absolute truths as many unbelievers are trying to teach these days. So, let me see if I can understand this, if there is no absolute truth, then how can they stand by their ignorance and make the claim that there is no absolute truth when they are claiming that their statement is truth. They have no ground to stand on for such ignorant claims. The Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God with absolute truth all the way from the book of Genesis through the book of Revelation and everything in between. It is the only truth that we can stand on in this crazy mixed up world in which we live.

ACTION POINT:

Before I finish with this word on the life of Jesus Christ, let me ask you a question, something for you to think about. The Bible is the only book in the world that tells of future events throughout history with 100% accuracy. Do you believe this is a coincidence, or do you believe that someone from outside of our time domain (Like Our God) could have had something to do with it? Nobody could ever have known everything that was going to happen unless they were from outside of time as we know it. It is undisputed and solid evidence that the Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God. “Written To the glory of God, Inspired by the Holy Spirit!” Amen!

The Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection—R Fritz

These 4 acts had to happen before we had a path laid that we could get to heaven and eternal life. I am making this easy to understand how our sins had to be paid for. Adam and Eve messed up when Satin taught them to sin. We were set to be with God forever. When sin came in with Adam and Eve disobeying God. That sin, disobedience, God sent Adam and Eve to work for a living. Jesus’s birth again had to be without sin because only somebody without sin could be the sacrifice for all the sins once and for all. This is what Jesus said to Saul, whose name we know as Paul, after he knocked him to the earth and was told “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satin unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” This was the orders he gave to Paul, which also pertains to us. Our old self (the sinful person you used to be) does not want anybody telling them what they can do. That person lived in sin and wanted the freedom and hiding in darkness for nobody to see. Our sin has consequences, most people do not see what is happening in their life or why things happen. Remember God told Adam and Eve not to eat from only 1 tree. They could eat from all the rest. It is the same with our life. There is only certain things God does not want us to do. They are for our own good. When we decide to go against him, we pay a price. Smoking, drugs, alcohol, fear (worry) are some of things we do that have consequences. I know everybody is thinking why fear. 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” I can tell you from my experience of 50 years of fear that it has a feeling associated with it and it does not feel good. You might not know that fear could have consequences physically and mentally and a sin. Chronic fear weakens our immune system, stomach issues, clinical depression and PSTD. You are again wondering what’s so wrong with fear and worry. It is about you putting yourself first before God in the flesh and not believing and trusting God. It is also a contagious disease because we speak what is on our heart. It also brings with it anger, disgust, hatred, horror, and jealousy. It is about you thinking about the future and not about the present. Revelation 21:8 says, and this is Jesus speaking “But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murders, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”  I can take another of our feelings, anger. It is associated with heart disease, stroke, weakened immune system and anxiety (fear). If we have anger, we also have the anger against somebody that has hurt you. We need to forgive somebody. About 4 or 5 months ago the Holy Spirit revealed anger to me as a small child, I asked why I had such rage. Just recently, it was revealed to me the reason why. Again, I had to forgive somebody, or God cannot forgive me. I say this when the Holy Spirit shows me what happened, you will know you have to forgive them. Matthew 18:21 says and this is Peter asking Jesus “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” We need to forgive them 490 times when somebody sins against us. Unforgiveness can turn into anger. You see how our feelings and emotions affect us physically and mentally. Our feelings and emotions can turn into sin. I have now revealed why some people have disease. We can get rid of it by taking it to God and ask for forgiveness and letting go of it. Our rebirth, our belief in Jesus Christ and Born-Again and having a relationship with him every day is our real birth. After our rebirth, our life should follow Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to do the things Jesus did through the Holy Ghost. If you chose him everything, he gives you is a gift from heaven to overcome us and our thinking. Ephesians 1:17-19 says, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,”

We have to choose him, meaning we need to say words to choose him and then our words have to match our actions and obey his word. We also must repent of our sins. Choosing Jesus Christ requires not just words but our actions to back up our words. Studying his word and listening to the Holy Spirit gives us a life better than the old life. Satin wants to take everybody with him to Hell. Because of our words and actions, after death, we will be with Jesus forever. That is the rebirth, life lived through the eyes of Jesus, our death, and living with Jesus forever. The gift we did not deserve until we made Jesus our “Lord” and “Savior.” Remember it is all about our choices! 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” These words will stop fear, anger, and your thoughts. I used them to stop fear immediately! God Bless.