| Why we follow Jesus Christ |
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Supernatural / miraculousFollowing Jesus means you can experience healings and miracles, prophecy, words of knowledge (supernatural insight), visions, encounters with God, answers to prayer and other supernatural experiences. A few links to miracle accounts: A film which records miracles from all around the world is Finger of God - see http://www.spiritbodysoul.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=1 Jesus and angels are appearing to Muslims all over the world, and many are becoming believers in Jesus. Read some stories here: http://isaalmasih.net/isa/dreamsofisa.html Integrity of character – love and forgiveness, generosityWhen you become a Christian, Jesus gives you integrity of character – eg love, joy, peace. This is through a process of what the Bible calls sanctification (setting apart for special use or purpose, to make holy or sacred). Only the love of Jesus is like this: suffers long, is kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, rejoices in the truth, bears, believes, hopes and endures all things and never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 in the Bible). Neither atheism nor any other religion offers this - in no other religion did God come to earth to demonstrate what love really is, and to sacrifice his life for ours and forgive others. Islam tries to conquer nations through fear and violence but Christianity impacts people with peace, love and forgiveness. Lives changed – freedom and wholenessNothing else changes people’s lives like Jesus does – drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals can all be changed – often this takes place in an instant. Even if you have never done any of these things, Jesus can still make you complete and heal any brokenness of heart. He brings complete freedom. I know personally many examples. Here are some stories on the internet: Jesus offers freedom and healing of the whole spirit, soul and body – no other religion, philosophy or atheism offers this. Beneficial effects on societyThe Ten Commandments represent the cornerstone of the values upon which USA and other western countries was built and the basis of their legal systems. Much of the freedom and sense of justice, honesty and moral values in Western countries such as UK and USA are based on Bible-based laws and morals. Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the author of Commentaries on the Laws of England, in which he acknowledged that the Ten Commandments were the basis for English law (also upon which American law was based) when he wrote: “The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures...Yet undoubtedly the revealed law is (humanly speaking) of infinitely more authority than what we generally call the natural law. Because one is the law of nature, expressly declared so to be by God himself; the other is only what, by the assistance of human reason, we imagine to be that law.” Further evidence for this is here: There are some regions of the world which have been transformed by God, including Fiji, Uganda, the Arctic regions of Canada and other places. These are documented in the Transformations films. See Atheism does not offer any equivalent. The main thing that atheism can offer is intellectual arguments and philosophy, it cannot transform lives or society. Look at communism and see what the extremes of atheism bring - the oppression, control, persecution and denial of human rights. Many charities in UK are Christian charities and have brought so much good to society: eg Tearfund, Christian Aid, Traidcraft, YMCA, Shaftesbury Society, Salvation Army. Others were founded or helped to be founded by Christians including Barnardos, the Childrens Society, RSPCA, Red Cross. Atheism and other religions do not cause people to do this to such an extent.Many major changes in society have taken place because of Christians, eg slave trade abolished primarily as a result of William Wilberforce in 1800s, orphanages established by George Mueller in Bristol (in 1800s) and Heidi Baker in Mozambique (today). Many inventors, great scientists, artists and composers were Christians eg Michael Faraday, Hertz, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, Blaise Pascal, Voltaire, Louis Pasteur, James Clark Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Sir John Ambrose Fleming, Felix Mendelssohn, Daniel Defoe, Rudyard Kipling, Francis Collins. See http://nobelist.tripod.com Read about some of them in several books: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Purpose-Peter-Masters/dp/1870855418/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b Many successful large companies were founded by Christians eg H J Heinz, John Laing, Eddie Stobart, Sir Peter Vardy, Titus Salt. Some of these were forerunners in providing benefits to employees. Life after deathAtheism does not offer life after death, only a hopeless nothingness after death.Only Christianity teaches salvation (freedom from the effects of sin, and being saved for eternal life and for reigning with God), by grace and not works and that we can be sure we have eternal life. People who follow other religions can only hope that they may be saved by works, they can hope for eternal life but can never be sure they have done enough good works to earn it. Christians have no fear of death. Many people have come back from the dead and tell the story, eg Ian McCormack – see http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/content.php?folder_id=1 or Ron Pettey - see http://rgministries.org/. Read many other accounts in Dr Richard Kent’s books, The Final Frontier and Beyond the Final Frontier, http://www.finalfrontier.org.uk/index.php?main=1 FriendsChristianity means I have friends all over the world. I can travel anywhere in the world and go to churches, conferences, social events and wherever there are Christians I have friends. Atheism does not offer this to the same extent.Hope, passion, enthusiasmThere is no hope, passion and enthusiasm in anyone as much as I have seen in Christians. Christians have a hope that things will happen, and passion and enthusiasm to get things done. True Christians often do things selflessly and voluntarily rather than for money. Many charities, churches and Christian organisations and missions are run primarily by volunteers who are Christians.The BibleArchaeology supports the Bible – For example: The Bible contains so much power and divine revelation. No other book gives wisdom and instruction for almost every area of life like the Bible does. To see this for yourself you could try reading the book of Proverbs, or the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 to 7. You could also take a look at the opening pages in Gideon Bibles found in hotels, hospitals and prisons, the Where to find help section. Jesus fulfilled over 360 predictions in the Old Testament of the Messiah. See http://bibleprobe.com/300great.htm Many modern events are predicted in the Bible such as: The Bible describes facts about the earth and the universe, long before science discovered them: There are no contradictions in the Bible. Apparent contradictions can be explained, see http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm and http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm The universe points to design and a creatorThe enormous complexity, order and beauty that we see in the universe points to design. A building has to have designer to be able to come into being, it cannot slowly evolve into being over many years. In the same way the universe must have had a designer/creator to have come into being. Life cannot come about by chance and man cannot create life. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins have no answer to the origin of life, the only sensible explanation of how human life came about is creation by a spiritual or supernatural being who is outside the physical realm.The explanation and answer to sin and evilOnly Christianity satisfactorily explains how sin and evil came into the world and what the answer is to sin and evil. The Bible teaches that God created the world as good and perfect, but man fell into sin by disobeying what God had said. Therefore sin and death entered the world, but then God loved us so much that he sent his son, Jesus Christ (which means saviour, the anointed one), into the world to take the punishment for sin upon himself and freely give us eternal life. Click on one of these links to find out how you can follow Jesus Christ: |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 February 2009 ) |