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Jesus Came for what?
As a Seventh Day Adventist Christian I have been blessed to learn many things from God's word, the Holy Bible. I am still learning and will continue to learn all the way throughout eternity! God is very big.
Did you know that when we begin a relationship with God He never gets tired of showing us new and important things? When I learned that Jesus Christ came to die for my sins I was amazed that He would do that without my even asking Him. Before I became a true Seventh Day Adventist Christian I had been taught that; "Jesus came and died for your sins! Jesus died for you!" But in most churches I attended that is where the message stopped.
Only in the Seventh Day Adventist church did I begin to understand that Jesus came for another and very important reason. Jesus Christ came to show us the character of God. So many people had misrepresented the Holiest and only True God. The religious teachers misrepresented God's character in their teachings and through their actions.
We get to know God through the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to show us God's true nature and character. Get this clear! Christian author, Ellen White spoke much regarding this issue of Jesus revealing God's true character. Ellen White emphasizes repeatedly in her wrtings that the focal point of the great controversy is Satan's aim to misrepresent the loving character of God.
Jesus could not change His moral law, the Ten Commandments. God does not change! So how could God restore His broken relationship with us if we are commandment breakers? He could have changed His law but that would be against His nature. Instead, God chose to send His only and perfect son, Jesus Christ to die for us.
Ellen White points out that the things of nature in a world of sin "but imperfectly represent His love." She says the supreme and clearest illustration of God's love for us is God sending Jesus to save us from our sins (SC 10-13).
She demonstrates in her writings that Jesus taught us through His life how to live a true Christian life. He now becomes our Lord, the Lord that demonstrates the true character of God. Satan's aim is to misrepresent the loving character of God.
Satan talks about throwing people into a "everlasting torture chamber" where God will smile at the suffering people that He created. Satan tell's people to break the moral law and that all that really matters is that you "accept" Christ as yoursaviour but not your Lord. This goes back to the Babylonian occult law; "Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law." In otherwords, Satan says that Christian lifestyle and charactor development does not really matter.
This is why others who claim Christianity have a problem with Seventh Day Adventist's. Seventh Day Adventist's stress Christian maturity and character development. Relationship with Christ means you will grow and change!
So instead of learning God's character by studying the life of Jesus, the "perfect commandment keeper", Satan says; "Watch the same junk on TV. Eat the same food. Smoke, drink....you do not even have to attend church. Just believe in Jesus...thats all...heee, heee." This takes the "pressure" off the trying to "bare a cross" and live a truly "sanctified" and "growing Christian life".
Sad, but here are the facts. God loved you enough to come here and die for you. He also sent the Holy Spirit to trust and rely in that you might begin to grow in your Christian life. Most people are turned away from Christianity because most Christians dress, speak, eat, and live like the rest of the world.
Seventh Day Adventist Christians understand that people will live either according to the principle of Satan's kingdom or by the principle of God's kingdom. There are no other options. Belief can simply be the ideas of people's principles and be held only in their hearts and minds. But this is not true faith. True Christianity motivates daily actions. Ellen White wrote that "love can no more exist without revealing itself in outward acts than fire can be kept alive without fuel" (1T 695). Who we really are inside will be displayed in the practical experiences of daily life.
Written by, Eric W. King [December 13,2007]
Visit: The Adventist Way of Life
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One of the most insightful analysis of the Big Picture that Adventists see in God's messages to men and women! Adventists unite the objective and subjective aspects of "faith"--realizing that God's Word, all of it, is a call for our response of appreciation, trust, and obedience. God doesn't shoot blanks just to make us feel good. Cheers, Herb Douglass