To celebrate or not to celebrate...lets celebrate life!

I see that the Christmas blog caused so much stir that they had to shut it down to comments ;) I read both sides with interest and can relate to both praties. Let me explain. I am a Christian, although that gives a bad image in most poeples minds so lets say i beleive in Jesus, that He died and rose again, that my sins are no longer counted against me and i have freedom. I am also passionately against religion and control. They are not one and the same thing or at least they shouldn't be.

So lets start at the beginning, I will paraphrase here we all know what the Bible says or do we, its worth doing your home work here don't just take what religion throws at you, it is often out of context and could kill you ;)

God created man in His image. Man enjoyed communion with God. Man had dominion over everything. It was never Gods intent for man to know the difference from right and wrong. Good and evil. Rom 4:15 for the law worketh wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. It was only after man was decieved (God created man in His image and the devil convinced them that God was holding out on them and said "if you eat of the fruit you will become like God".) Ha ha they were already like God! So they thought God was holding out on them and in unbelief in Gods goodness they ate the fruit. Sin enters...which brings a question. What is the root of all sin? You are intelligent people, you can answer that one. Sin entered and mankind forfieted his dominion over the planet and handed over his authority to the devil. God put a plan in motion to redeem mankind. Here enters every kind of evil, sickness, poverty, war...it was not goids doing but the devils. Devil bad, God good. So no, God doesn't give people cancer but hey thats a whole new debate.

Enter Abraham. God found a man, an arabian, not a jew and said to him, I want to bless you. Abraham said ok bless me and God did. He was blessed in every way even when he lied and decieved people by telling them his wife was his sister. He didn't have to do anything to receive this blessing, he just had to believe what God had told him. This is the Abrahamic covenant.

Enter the old covenant. Long story short, the Israelites refused to relate to God through faith, they did not believe in Him or trust Him despite all the miracles in Egypt etc. In desperation God gave the ten commandments, which were never meant to be obeyed....it was given to reveal sin. don't stone me yet. ha ha.

Rom 3:20 because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.

God laid down the law and it wasn't just ten commandments there were many many more like we saw in that other blog. He told them that He would bless them if they obeyed all the commands and curse them if they did not. In utter stupidity the Israelites said "we will do everything You command". What they should have said was "please no we can't do it" but they were self righteous like most of us are still. God never meant to relate to His people through rules but through relationship. We are human beings not human doings.

Enter David. David was a man and king under the old covenant but he did not relate to God through rules and regulations. He did things that broke the law on many occasions, murder, lust, eating food from the temple but it says that he was a man after Gods own heart. He had a relationship with God and the favour of God was on him.

Enter Jesus. God sent His son, Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us so that once and for all we could be FREE to have relationship with God apart from rules and regulations. Jesus lived confronting religion, self righteous behavior. Check it out, when ever Jesus seems harsh with people it is because he is adressing self righteousness and exposing our need for help. Self righteousness says that I can earn favour with God by the way I behave, if I read my bible and pray enough God will bless me, if I don't he will curse me. Am I saying don't read your bible or pray? no, I never said that. One problem with obeying the law is that if you fail at one part of the law, you fail at it all. And we have all failed at living up to the law, thats because we were never meant to live up to it. The law was put in place to make us realise that we can't do it and that we need a saviour. For example Jesus addresses the rich young ruler who says what must I do to follow you? Jesus says, "obey all the laws", the young man says "i have done this since my youth" (SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS)it is impossible to obey the law. (Please hear me, I am not talking about speed limits etc. Thats the law of the land.) Then Jesus says "ok then sell everything you have and follow me". He didn't mean we must all go and sell all our stuff if we want to be a christian, he was exposing selfrighteousness in his heart. He was saying to him, "You know what, the first law is love the Lord you God with all your heart and you love your money more, so don't tell me you have obeyed all the laws." The same with "if you look at a woman lustfully you have committed adultery" The pharisees thought they were so righteous because on th outside everything looked in order but Jesus knew their hearts and was exposing hidden sin, not to condemn them but to help them realise their need of a saviour.
Joh 3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!
Watch how Jesus acts around sinners, He doesn't ever judge a sinner, He judges the self righteous, the religious. To sinners He shows mercy, love and acceptance. The people came to him and said what must we do to do the works that you do? Jesus didn't give them a long list of hoops to jump through, He said, "all you have to do is believe in me".

Enter the new covenant. There has been much confusion over the new covenant and the new testament. The new covenant is not the new testement. The New Covenant starts in Acts where Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father and the Holy Spirit is out poured. The old covenant is a covenant between God and man and the new covenant is between God and Jesus whcih is great because we cant get in the way and mess it up! Jesus overcame death and disease and the devil on the cross, He took back dominion and gave it back to His people. He gave us free access into the presence of God, we don't have to do anything because Jesus did everythign on our behalf because we couldn't do it. He fulfilled the law on our behalf.

So i think a lot of confusion comes in because people read and preach the bible not understanding the covenants. If you read the bible as it is written and not in light of the covenants and what Jesus did on the cross, it will kill you. You will be so frustrated because you can never keep all the laws and you never know if God is angry or not. Am I saying I don't believe in the old testament? I didn't say that. All I am saying is that the old testament is pointing to Jesus, Jesus has died and now we can live in the freedom of what He purchased on the cross on our behalf. Can I tie my own noose and say that God is more concerend about unbelief than He is about sin. How can I say such a thing??? Because Jesus died for every sin, past present and future, it has been paid for. It has been defeated. Jesus overcame sin on the cross. Is sin good? Of course not. Am i saying its fine to sin? No sin is harmful, it causes pain, breakdown in relationships but if you sin it does not affect the way God looks at you because if you are a believer, when He looks at you, He sees Jesus.

It is really very simple. Its good news.
God is in a good mood.
Because Jesus died for your sin on the cross.
Because you are important.
And nothing is impossible.

Are we seeing all this freedom in the church today? No but that is because of years and years or religion that we are trying to wade through and undo. Where peole know who God is and who they are in God there is life and healing and power. Its not about what we do or don't do, its about relationship, its about experiencing the power and presence of a living God.

I am happy to give scripture references if need be :)

PS please don't judge me on my spelling or grammar, just speaking my heart as it comes out.