Day 18 – Your beliefs

This post may hopefully spark up discussions and comments below. I'll start off by saying that I am a Christian. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus died on cross for me and purchased my salvation through Him. I believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. I believe in the God of the Bible, which is the same God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I believe God saves people. I believe that people are going to hell if they do not give their lives to Jesus. I believe God is love.

I do have faith, not in something that does not exist. If I do believe in things that does not exist, then you could call me insane. However, I do have faith that God exists even though I am not able to see Him. In the Bible, faith is described as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). I believe Jesus was raised from the dead. "And if Christ has not been raised, then [my] preaching is in vain and your faith [and my faith] is in vain...but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:14;20) So for those who do not want Him to exist or still want Him dead, then tough luck.

Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork."

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it the POWER of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Roman 1:16). This is the gospel that I believe because I personally experienced the power of it and Jesus Christ saved me. He has given me a new life, a new heart, and a new desire to love and serve Him. I am not my old-self as I was during my High school years, but I am a new creation, I have been clothed with a "new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24).

I wrote a "letter" as an assignment for one of my Bible classes, and I want to explain why I believe the Bible is worth-reading and living by. So if you want to read it, then feel free. I'll be continuing my entry down below and end my blog.

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Dear (reader),

How are you doing lately? Hopefully you are doing alright with your life. Do you remember the letter you have sent me? You asked me why I believe the Bible is worth reading and living by. Therefore, hopefully in this letter, you will understand why I value Jesus as a Christian and live in obedience to Him. Hopefully you still remember the conversation we had about how I became a Christian and how you were struggling with life during that moment.

I believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God because it is authoritative, accurate, and authentic. If I may quote the Bible found in 2 Timothy 3:16, then I am very convinced that “All Scripture is inspired by God.” The word, inspired, means that the Bible is from God. Further on in that verse, I am convinced that the Bible is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” If God has given us the Bible, then He has something to say to us. When I read the Bible, I can clearly understand that the stories that Jesus told were speaking directly to me. God is teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training me to become more of the person who He wants me to be, which is to become the likeness of Jesus. I understand that reading the Bible is dull to you because I went through the same process too, but the Bible has impacted my life ever since I became a Christian since it is clearly from God. I love to read what He has to say to me so I could grow in my spiritual maturity, my spiritual effectiveness, and my relationship with Him. Hopefully you will experience the same joy as I have when I read the Bible.

You said, “The Bible was written by man, so how can the Bible be from God?” It is true that the Bible was written by people. Also, God did not use the pen to magically fly in the air and write for itself, although He could have simply done that since God is all-powerful, but He did not intend to do that. However, I believe that God worked through the authors of each book in the Bible through the process of inspiration. Inspiration is the process by which God worked through the human writers without destroying their individual personalities and styles to produce divinely authoritative and inerrant writings. In the Bible, I am convinced that “no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”, which is found in 2 Peter 1:20-21. God used people to produce the Scripture in the sense that it originates with Him and is authorized by Him, even though it is articulated by men. Simply put this: God revealed, and man recorded His word.

In Psalm 18:20, it say, “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” If God’s way is perfect, and that Bible is inspired by God, then Scripture in the original manuscript does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. Therefore, I am assured that Bible is accurate and does not err because the Bible has its origin in God and was superintended by His inspiration.

The Bible does not generally say everything we want to know like an instruction manual. For example, how to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, how to fix the car, how to do a better make-up, or how to become a pro-gamer in whatever videogames you are playing. So how is the Bible sufficient? What is God trying to tell us? The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God He intended His people to have at each stage of redemptive history. Perhaps when you read the Bible, it seemed like it just a story, poetry, prophecy, and logic, but God never intended it that way. Indeed, there are different genres in the Bible, but ultimately it contains the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting Him perfectly, and for obeying Him perfectly.

Unfortunately, we do not have the original manuscript, but one of the historical evidences is the early discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947 which contained the oldest complete manuscript of the book of Isaiah that dated back to about 125 B.C. You may be wondering how we obtained the Bible we have in this modern culture and how can we be sure we have every books that were inspired by God, which also called Canonization. Ultimately, it comes by faith in believing that God was overseeing the process and preserving the Bible through the generation because I believe God is more concern in about it. The history of canon did not immediately become a collection of books, but it was a gradually development as some books were accepted quickly and other hovered for a long time on the fringe of the canon before being fully accepted.

After reading this letter, my hope is that you would understand why I believe the Bible is worth reading and living by. Hopefully, it also helps answer your question and spark up curiosity. We may have different interpretation in viewing the Bible; however, the Bible contains the central meaning of what God is trying to communicate. God created us for His glory because He loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us. However, the Bible warns us of the eternal punishment in hell for those reject God’s love and turn away from His provision and forgiveness for their sin. God has given us the path of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have any more questions, then please feel free to reply.

God Bless,

Tommy

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Either you read the letter or not (hopefully you did), that's alright. I want to share what the gospel is...The gospel is the good news, in which Jesus died on the cross for your sins and my sins so that we may be reconciled to God and have a relationship with Him. God created all of us to reveal His glory and to be in relationship with us, just like the time in Adam and Eve. But we sinned against God, we chose to disobey Him, and we were set apart from God. And the consequence of sin is eternal torment in hell - eternally separated from God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom6:23), and no one is perfect. No one can do good deeds and merit salvation. However, because God is merciful, gracious, loving, and compassion, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as a rescue mission to save sinners. He lived on earth, lived just like us, but He did not sin. He taught, healed and did a lot of miracles. Later, He demonstrated His love by being crucified on the cross, and "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). Three days later, after He died, He rose from the dead so that one day we will rise with Him and live with Him forever. If your life feels perfect without, then I hope you are doing it right because the money, girl, reputation, and etc. won't last. Therefore, I urge you, don't walk in your own ways anymore. Turn to Jesus who can give you eternal life. Confess your sins to Him, call on Him, and repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ and thanking Him for what He has done for you. He will be coming back again, and He will judge! Those who believe in Jesus will spend in eternity with Him in heaven, and those who reject Him will spend in eternity in hell. That's the gospel! That's what I believe.