A Video In Remembrance of Joshua Hernandez
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Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
RIP Joshua Hernandez
One of my good friends, Joshua Hernandez, passed away yesterday in a car accident. He was 18, incredibly athletic, and was one of those people that you can't help but like. He was a faithful, awesome man of God, and was such a light in our youth group, church, and city. He was incredibly inspiring, and a wonderful young man. We love you Josh, and will always remember you.
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Old Testament and the Cross
One thing I have always wondered about in the Old Testament is the violence. Why do so many people die and so many harsh punishments be dealt to people when God is supposed to love us? This is a very difficult question many people struggle with. I am struggling with it myself. I have a book that I am going to read on the subject, but until then, I don’t know what to think.
I overheard a couple of students the other day talking about this very subject. They said that there are a lot of people killed in the Old Testament, and why did that happen? I thought about it a bit, and I believe that it is because Jesus had not come yet. Remember, the reason that we as Christians go to heaven is not because of our own righteousness, but in Jesus’ sacrifice so that we may live forever with Him. However, the sacrifice wasn’t made until the New Testament, after the Old Testament. The Bible says in Exodus 20:5
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to [idols], nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God.”
God says that He is a jealous God, he can share His glory with no other (Do not confuse this with Jesus, who is God). If He did, God would cease to be God (this is pretty confusing, don’t feel bad if you don’t understand it, I don’t understand it). God is also a pure God and a holy God; he cannot stand in the presence of sin. This is why we cannot go the Heaven, because every human on the planet (except for Jesus) has sinned. Even in your entire lifetime if you have sinned only once, then you cannot be with God.
This is a fundamental truth in the Old Testament. We, as fallible humans, sin. God cannot be with sin. Therefore, we cannot be with God. This paints a pretty bleak picture for us, and humanity as a whole.
This is where Jesus enters the picture. When Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross, He didn’t only bear the pain of the cross, He also bore the sins of all humanity. Before Jesus was taken by Judas and the Roman soldiers, He wept in the garden, so stressed that He was sweating blood. This can be a bit confusing to some believers, since many Christians have died seemingly worse death and went out singing. Does this mean that Jesus is weaker than His followers?
We must understand here that Jesus wasn’t stressing about the pain that the people would bring on Him, He was stressed about the pain that God would put on Him. Sins must have consequences, and Jesus took the fall instead of us. The wrath of God at all past sins and all future sins descended on Jesus. They say that God turned away from Jesus on the cross because He couldn’t bear to see His son in pain, but God turned away because He cannot look upon the sin.
Before Jesus came however, sin must be paid for, for as I said earlier sin must have consequences. This is why, I believe, that there was such a harsh punishment system in the Old Testament, because Jesus had not come and accounted for our sins yet, so people had to face the consequences.
I do not understand how it all works, and why God chose this system, but this is what I believe to be true.
“What can wash away our sins/nothing but the blood of Jesus”
Love Your Neighbor (Words with Jesus Part 2)
| One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" |
| "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. |
| Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' |
| The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31 One of my favorite passages in Scripture. Here I want to look at the last verse. “Love Your Neighbor as yourself”. Sounds simple enough. Love my neighbors. This is something we hear all the time. We usually interpret it as “love everybody”. I’ve heard before things like “You don’t have to like everyone, just love them.” I’d like to go a bit deeper into what Jesus is saying here. First, the word love. There are many words for love in the Greek and Hebrew, each meaning different things. Jesus chose agapao. This means “To welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly” (1). Jesus is saying to love our neighbors, but not just to love them, but to be fond of them. In essence, He is saying to be kind to them and, basically, just to love them. So, now some of us might wonder, what does He mean by neighbor? Blue Letter Bible puts it like this: “According to Christ, any other man irrespective of nation or religion with whom we live or whom we chance to meet” (2) I think this is a very accurate definition of neighbor. Anybody and everybody you meet is your neighbor. Now, the last word. Yourself. I think this is one of the most important parts of the verse. You love yourself don’t you? You don’t want yourself to get hurt. You try to please yourself. In fact, most of us care about ourselves more than anyone else. That’s just because it impacts us the most. And here, Jesus is saying to love a stranger as much as you love yourself. Think about that. Loving someone that much? When you think about it, that’s sounds difficult. But it’s biblical. It is said numerous times… love your neighbor as yourself. Also, notice the importance of this. Jesus says that this is the most important thing you do, other than loving the Lord, which takes place over anything. He says that this is all you need to follow. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself, then the rest will fall in place. If you love them that much, you wouldn’t lie. If you love them that much, you wouldn’t hurt them. If you truly love God and everybody, you would follow all of the others! But the truth is, since sin has entered the world, we cannot do this. I’m not saying that if you lie to your parents, it doesn’t mean you love them. We will all fall short. What I am saying is that the best thing you can do as a Christian is just love others. Love for strangers isn’t found (much) in the secular world. That is what separates us from the world. We have Christ’s love. So, here is a summary of what I’m trying to say. Jesus is saying that all we have to do is love Him more than anything, and fondly love anyone and everyone we meet. Doesn’t mean you have to particularly like them, but it does mean that in a situation where most people would cuss out the other person, we forgive and pray for them. Footnotes |
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