This is Jesus Christ

Introduction

Part 1: Jesus Christ and His Importance

   Jesus Made Your Life Better

       You Have Natural Rights Thanks to Jesus Christ's Moral Teachings

       The Modern STEM World is a Product of Jesus Christ's Moral Teachings

       We Can Lose It All If We Do Not Resist

   Is Jesus Still Relevant Today?

   What Jesus Said About Himself

Part 2: Understanding Jesus Christ

   Chapter 1: Jesus is "God"

   Chapter 2: Jesus is the "Son of God"

   Chapter 3: Jesus is Human

   Chapter 4: Jesus is the Creator

   Chapter 5: Jesus Upgrades Earth

   Chapter 6: Jesus is the Savior

   Chapter 7: Jesus Conquered Death

   Chapter 8: Jesus is the Only Way

   Chapter 9: Jesus Shall Return

   Chapter 10: Jesus Judges All

Conclusion

Scripture Reference Guide

Index 

Christianity allows you to sense true reality and your incredible destiny as God’s heir if you are strong enough and stubborn enough to stay on the path that leads to eternal life. 

The Christian worldview has an altruistic God who wants us to obtain eternal happiness without him gaining any advantage from our obedience. Unlike the motivations of the false gods of our past that still live in our entertainment, God does not feed off our sacrifice and prayers. He does not gain additional strength or powers from adoration. Neither does he consume the souls of his followers. 

Instead, the Christian God’s motivation for us to obey him is a desire for progeny – he wants to “adopt” us as his heirs who will share in his Son’s eternal rule over the universe. Our very nature will become compatible with his so we can share in the oneness and glory he shares with his Son. 

What the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are by nature, the Father wants us to become by grace. And he has the will and power to make it happen. [1]

The Christian concept of God is of a being who completely loves us and wants us to be truly happy. And he knows that this can only occur when we become compatible with his nature whereby we, as beings of love, become one and mutually indwell with him, the God of love. 

But to become compatible with God, we must consciously choose to live in the specific way he outlined. These “commandments” function as guardrails that alert us to dangers that can destroy us. If we cross them or “break” the commandments, we exit the path and will never reach its destination.

God never forces us to obey. Instead, he gives us the freedom to obey or disobey willingly. But there are consequences to our choices that cannot be altered.

If God is rational, then he gives commandments for a reason. Even if we do not understand those reasons or think they are stupid, the smart thing is to assume God gives them because they help us somehow.

You cannot become a doctor or professional in any field without following specific instructions and a code of ethics. Similarly, neither can you presume to become God’s heir without obedience to his imposed rules. And God’s conditions would be more stringent than becoming a doctor since the outcome—sharing oneness and glory as God’s heir who will rule over the universe beneath Christ—is vastly more significant than any doctor.

Consequently, it is reasonable to assume God’s commandments are designed to help us, not him. He is already perfect; we are commanded to become perfect (Matthew 5:48). He is already a God of love; he gives us commandments to become people of love. We benefit from obedience. 

When we examine the New Testament, it becomes evident that each of God’s commandments has at least one purpose:

God’s commandments are designed to help you love him, your neighbor, and yourself, individually or collectively. Their purpose is for you to: 

• Love God – To become compatible with the God of love so that you can enjoy the blessings of sharing in his divine nature, oneness, and mutual indwelling. 
• Love your neighbor – To develop charity and the other moral attributes necessary to become compatible with God and others.
• Love yourself – To establish the dignity, self-respect, and steadfastness necessary to become worthy of God’s adoption.

For example:

1 John 4:20-21 Those who say, “I love God,” but hates their brother or sister is a liar. Those who do not love others, whom they see, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 And we have this commandment from him: Those who love God must also love others.

We cannot love God if we do not also love our neighbor. But can we love our neighbor if we lack charity by urging them to keep God’s commandments even when they insist on living in a way God condemns? Can we really love someone without telling them the truth for fear of offending them? Is not their eternal fate as the glorified rulers of the universe more important than their feelings during the few years they have on earth?

This attitude is significant from a tangible perspective because we also find meaning and joy in our lives when we strive to bring others onto the path that leads to eternal life. We experience joy when we help them find joy by obeying God. It is not hypocritically judging others to want to help them become the glorified rulers of the universe. But we cannot pretend that God’s commandments are not there for a reason. 

So, live as a person who loves, continually repents, and follows God’s commandments. This attitude and behavior keep you on the path, inside the guardrails. Then you can help pull others over the guardrails so that you can walk the path together that leads to eternal life. 

Judge without hypocrisy to righteously judge those who need help—and then help them.

Matthew 7:1-5 Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. 2 You will be judged with the same standard that you judge others; you will be measured with the same measure you use on others. 3 Why do you see the splinter in another’s eye but do not notice the beam in your eye? 4 Or how can you say to another, “Let me take the splinter out of your eye” when you have a beam in your eye? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to remove the splinter out of another’s eye. 

[1] Christianity considers you, individually, to be worth more to God than an entire galaxy because he can always make more universes. God’s greatest desire is to have Sons and Daughters who freely and willingly transform to share his nature and being. You are his glory, not the universe. 

We like to think we are rational beings who are not governed by emotions and primitive superstitions. We celebrate science and utilize technology to make our lives easier and nicer. Our educational system, media, and popular culture have conditioned us that science, not religion, is the most credible source of information and guidance.

And it is hard to dispute this assertion since it has been science, not religion, that has transformed our world into one that is richer, healthier, and more knowledgeable.

But just throwing out “science” as the catch-all answer to questions does a fundamental disservice to the problems we face as humans. They are not resolved by just citing Ockham’s logic; sometimes, the simplest answer is not the correct one. This is no different than a person answering every problem with “God wills it.”

One does not need to be a Christian to observe the blatantly obvious fact that our society’s movement away from Jesus and his teachings has negatively affected our happiness and self-worth. Despite all our gadgets and entertainment, we have become unmoored, miserable, and lonely. We feel empty and worthless. We desperately want to fill the void inside us with something more meaningful and lasting than sex, substances, and entertainment. 

We have forgotten who we are and why we are here.

Jesus did not just bring knowledge; he taught us how to live. That way of life – do unto others what you want to be done to yourself, show love and kindness toward others, treat others as if they were the King himself, forgive those who have wronged you, respect the law and the dignity and rights of others – makes our world a nicer and more enjoyable place to live. Living his teachings results in our relationships becoming better, our marriages and families stronger, our neighborhoods nicer, and our nations happier. But, perhaps most crucially, living his teachings gives meaning and joy to our lives regardless of what life brings.

To be truly happy and content requires living a life of meaning. And Christ showed us that such a life could only be achieved by loving God, our neighbors, ourselves, and keeping God’s commandments.

When you live such a life, you become truly happy. You do not need medication, drugs, and loveless sex to find joy in your existence. You find pleasure in life, in service, and in sacrifice.

Our society must pivot back to following Christ to avoid the abyss in front of us. If we care about the future and our children’s quality of life, we must stand firm for eternal principles against social forces that dictate new morals. We must not be afraid to be mocked, vilified, and even punished for clinging to outdated views. 

We have tried living away from Christ’s morality and realize that it does not work. It results in us reverting to the default of our nature that values insiders more than outsiders. It makes people unequal and makes our quality of life much worse.

Our world is again sick with moral relativity and a vacuous sense of reality where people seem unable to tell right from wrong. The line between what is real and what is fantasy is so blurred that simple objective facts cannot be said without getting punished. Behaviors once opposed and condemned are now normalized, celebrated, and even sanctified. We have stopped resisting evil out of fear of being labeled and punished. 

We cannot continue the path we are on if we want to be happy with ourselves. And Christ provides the answer. 

The Bible calls Jesus the “Son of God” dozens of times because of two doctrines: Jesus was a product of a miraculous pregnancy, and he possessed a unique relationship with God before becoming human. It was not because he taught “righteousness,” or because he was “holy” and had special wisdom, or because he became “enlightened.”

The Bible claims Jesus’s mother, Mary, became pregnant with him by the power of God while still a virgin. In modern genetic terms, this means Mary’s haploid ovum merged with something other than a haploid human sperm to become the diploid zygote that became Christ’s physical body. And whatever this haploid “sperm” was, it contained the Y chromosome that resulted in a male gender (XY). 

No human male sperm contributed half of the 23 paired chromosomes to become the body of Jesus Christ. Instead, God provided that portion of his genome through the Holy Spirit. Whatever that was, it resulted in the “fullness” of God to be within Christ’s flesh (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9).

Matthew 1:18-20 Now, this is how the birth of Jesus Christ occurred: While his mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph, she became pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit while still a virgin. 19 And Joseph, her husband, being a decent man and unwilling to humiliate her publicly, sought to annul their marriage in private. 20 While he was struggling with what to do, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, you son of David. Do not be afraid to keep Mary as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit!”

Luke 1:31-35 Now listen! You will become pregnant and give birth to a Son and name him Jesus. 32 He shall be great and will be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God shall give him his forefather David’s throne. 33 He shall reign over Jacob’s house forever, and his kingdom will never end.

34 Mary then said to the angel, “How is this possible since I have never been intimate with a man?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. The Holy One who will be born will be called the Son of God.”

[Things to Ponder table]

The Bible asserts Jesus had a unique relationship with God, where he lived with God as his “Son” before becoming human. 

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and lived among us. We have seen his glory—the glory of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

1 John 4:9-10 God showed his love toward us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 This is real love: Not that we loved God, but because He loved us—and sent his Son to be the appeasing sacrifice for our sins!

Romans 8:3,32 God did what the Law of Moses was incapable of doing due to the weakness of flesh: God condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son to become flesh . . . 32 Since God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for our sakes, there is then nothing that he would not also give us.

Galatians 4:4 But when the appointed time arrived, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.

John 3:13-18 No one has ever gone up to heaven except he who came down from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted the snake on the pole while in the wilderness, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 16 God loved humankind so much that he gave up his only Son. Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

17 God sent his Son to the world not to condemn humankind but to save it through him. 18 No condemnation is done to those who believe in him. But those who refuse to believe are already condemned because they do not believe in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 6:38-39 God sent me down from heaven to do what he wants, not what I want. 39 When he sent me to earth, he wanted me to keep all those he gave me and elevate them on the last day.

John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me because I came from God. I am not here on my own accord—he sent me.”

[Things to Ponder table]