Christianity isn’t a set of rules dictating one’s life. It
isn’t a mysterious supernatural being condemning all of humanity. It isn’t a
set of teachings about how to live. It isn’t an excuse to live however one wants.
It isn’t a promise that life will be better. It isn’t about being good enough.
So, what is it about?
When God created
the heavens and the earth and all living things and forms of matter, He knew
all that was going to happen. God is not bound by time, i.e. He knows
everything that has ever happened and ever will happen. And He also has
thinking capacity beyond our understanding. When God created everything, He had
one thing on His mind.
You.
God sees every person as His unique and
beloved creation. He has that capacity. And with every man and woman He has
ever created, He meticulously made them in His image, and said that His
creation was good. See when God created everything, He had a purpose. And that
purpose was relationship.
God created you
because He desired a relationship with you. The God of the universe wants to be
friends with you, you whom he says is His greatest creation. He actively
searches for you, to know you and to be with you. He wants to be your friend.
After God’s
creation, the first human, Adam, made a mistake, as we are all prone to do. He
rebelled against God and sinned, causing the fall of humanity. God can’t live
with sin, because he himself is sinless, so He had to punish Adam. Work became
difficult, and life would be rough for generations to come. Time and time
again, people would sin, and each time God’s heart would break.
So it looked like humanity had been a
failure. A messed up drawing. Someone had drawn outside the lines, and now it
was time to throw it away.
But God didn’t throw us away.
Even though we
had (and still do) failed Him, He in His love for us made a plan to save us, so
that we could be with Him again. With this plan He showed us that He does draw
outside the lines, and instead of throwing away the drawing, He fixes it. And
this plan to save us? To die.
God sent His only
son, Jesus Christ, down to earth to live and die for us.
The God of the
universe came to earth as a man to clean up our mess so that He could be with
us. Instead of erasing the mistake and doing it over again, He fixed it. After
all, He is a carpenter.
Not only did He
come to save us, but He came to experience what being human was like. He stayed
perfect with no sin, but He felt physical and emotional pain as well as
temptation while on earth, all so He could say to His children “I know what you
are going through, and I’m here for you”. After all, true friends are there for
each other.
Then, He died on
the cross. But it isn’t just the cross that He experienced that day. When Jesus
was hanging on that tree, He bore not only the pain of the cross but also the
pain of our sin. He took the punishment that we should receive, just so that He
can be with us. He did this so that on the day when humans are judged, God sees
Christ in His perfection instead of us in our sin and we may be with Him for
eternity.
Jesus died so
that He could give us the greatest gift of all: to be with Him. And the crazy
thing about this gift is that it’s totally undeserved. After all the mistakes
we’ve all made, and to be with Him in heaven? It’s preposterous, but God loved
us so much that He made a way for us. Like all gifts, He expects nothing in
return. All you have to do is accept it.
So what is
Christianity? It’s a love story.
