Why Christianity?
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Before revealing what it is that a trusting relationship with Christ has to offer that cannot be found in any other religion in the world, it is important that you the reader are able to understand this one thing… Never let yourself be convinced Christs love and forgiveness is not extended to you as well. Plenty of you reading this series may be thinking ‘well good for Christians, I’m glad they have some reasoning behind some of their beliefs. But it just doesn’t work for me. I’m on the outside and will take my chances living in my sin.’ When we live comfortably in sin, not only do we allow suffering into our lives, but we lose fellowship with God. It’s like jumping off of the side of a boat in the ocean, the water may seem refreshing and pleasant for the time being but God recognizes that there are sharks in those waters, the salt will dehydrate you, and if left in long enough you’ll inevitably drown. He loves us sinners, but hates our sin, for he understands how destructive it can be. The eternal love God has for us is not lost. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) If Paul of Tarsus can come to believe in Jesus, so can you. Don’t let yourself be convinced by the condescending voices of the secular elites. Of course I’m sure you’re all familiar with people who proclaim to be Christians but come far from living up to a professing Christian standard. Just keep in mind that although mankind is fallible, Christ is not. His message is that of love and salvation for a fallen world through his sacrifice.
Thousands of religions and Gods and prophets have been believed in and taught around the world both before and after Jesus came along, so what makes Christianity true? Logically speaking, if you are presented with a question; the existence of other answers some may believe in does not inherently disprove the validity of the correct answer. A math problem has a near infinitesimal amount of wrong answers, that doesn’t make the correct answer any less correct. Now what we have become burdened with is the task of proving that Christianity is that correct answer.
The claim that Christianity is true hinges on a few questions… Does objective truth exist? Does God exist as we’ve come to understand him? Is Jesus who he claimed to be? Are Miracles possible? Are the New Testament claims of a resurrected Jesus reliable evidence? We will briefly touch on these questions here, but each will have their own individual blog, for the purpose of this blog is to illustrate what makes Christianity stand apart from the other religions of the world.
To say that objective truth does not exist, and that all truth is relative is a self-defeating claim. If someone claims that truth is merely relative, how can they possibly prove that said statement is objectively true? That’s circular logic. It is undoubtably possible for someone to believe something to be perfectly true, but that does not therefore make it inherently true. Now this is not to say that what is actually true does not exist. The overall point being…Truth predates human existence. It is not just something made up by the human mind. To test that theory, is the following statement true? ‘Before humans existed, there weren’t any humans.’ There is a transcendent mind in which the immaterial laws of nature must be grounded in, such as the laws of Mathematics, laws of logic, truth, and morality. Attempts to disprove God by making arguments that are dependent on the laws of logic which he has set in order becomes awfully ironic and baseless.
There are a multitude of arguments that can be made to prove the existence of an omnipotent, transcendent, uncaused, creator of the universe that we have come to know as God. Some of which being the Moral Argument, the Ontological Argument, as well as the Fine Tuning of the Universe to sustain life. More importantly there exists a more tangible argument to prove his existence. He took on the form of human flesh and bone, sacrificed himself to alleviate us from the damnation of our transgressions, and was resurrected in three days before ascending into the kingdom of heaven. Keep in mind that if such a being exists who can create the universe out of nothing, miracles such as turning water into wine or the resurrection of Jesus would be mere child’s play.
Details of the prophesized messiah can be found all throughout Old Testament scripture which predates Jesus by thousands of years. Written over a multitude of different time periods, with parts originating from different locations. Perfect messianic prophesy was accomplished through Christ. Many manmade religions have tried to prophesize the future, but all have failed to do so. Jesus has met all of the requirements necessary to fulfill messianic code. The Where, as Provided in Micah 5:2. The when as provided in Daniel 9. The who, as provided in Isiah 9 6:7. The why, as provided in Genesis 3:14-15. As well as what will happen, as provided in Isiah 53. Just as God did in Egypt, the perfect lamb has been sacrificed in order to spread his blood across your front door so that he may see who to pass his judgement over in order to free the people of their slavery and lead those who are now saved to the promise land.
What was it that the New Testament writers had to gain from claiming that Jesus is and was the resurrected son of God? During those times, if you were to claim anyone to be God, you would be considered and treated as a blasphemer. Something not taken lightly at all during that period because they were within a prophesized time-period to which the messiah would come, so everyone was on high alert. The Jews already considered themselves to be Gods chosen people, so what motive did they have to make up such a story? Just like being a Roman guarding an empty tomb, there was nothing but punishment to be gained from that story. They were able to recognize that spreading the gospel and letting the world know that they have been saved was worth whatever tribulation awaited them. Historical evidence for multiple and separate post-mortem sightings of Christ by crowds from one to 500 people have been studied and confirmed by New Testament and historical scholars alike. Christianity is based off an event, not a book. Without the New Testament, Christianity wouldn’t become any less true. Thousands upon thousands of Christians existed before a single page of the book was written.
John 8 tells in meticulous detail what it is Christ has to offer. While God has written the laws in stone, he took on flesh and walked amongst us and writes his laws in the sand, so that the mercy of the lord as mighty as the ocean may sweep them away so long as you trust in him. Christianity recognizes that nobody can be perfect by God’s standards, let alone your own set of standards that constitutes ‘good.’ As you read this, take a second to pause and think to yourself, what do I believe makes someone a ‘good person.’ After you thought of all those qualities that make somebody a good person according to your standards, ask yourself this… throughout my life have I consistently upheld every single one of those qualities, without tripping up even once? Every other religion operates on a works based/checklist system that you must follow in-order to reach that God. Christianity recognizes that it is God who has done the hard work and has come down to reach out to us. The differentiating factor is as follows, obey these rules through fear of being accepted or not vs. you are accepted so obey, because you love me as I have loved you. He proved his love for us through his sacrifice on the cross. It is not a religion that is being offered, it is a relationship. Instead of trying to scramble around your whole life trying to please him, humble yourself and accept his offering. The wages of sin is death and he has posted the bail because he recognizes that we are fallible beings, yet he wants to have a loving relationship with us anyways.
A Closing Prayer For You The Reader
Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. There is nothing I can do to get to you or heaven, you are the one who did all the work by sacrificing yourself for me and dying on the cross for my sins. Help me to pursue a relationship with you and not the religion. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.