The Growing Edge
A Matter of Life and Death
Just wanted to post here a great article just received from my friend Roger Fields from Kidz Blitz. (I have added the bold)
Christianity is not about good and evil, but about life and death. Jesus did not come to make us good but to make us alive. The difference between a believer and a non-believer is not that the believer does good things and the non-believer does bad things. The prime difference is that the believer is alive and the non-believer is dead. The Bible is explicit about this from the get-go.
Adam and Eve were to eat from the Tree of Life and abstain from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God wanted them to have life, not merely an ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Adam and Eve thought being smart about good and evil was more important than life from God. They were wrong then and we still make the same mistake today. Adam and Eve died the SAME DAY they ate from the wrong tree, even though they lived physically for many more years. Take a peek at Genesis 2:17.
Consequently, we are not bad people in need of goodness. We are dead people in need of life. Jesus did not come to give us an example. He came to give life. I don’t need an example; I need life. (I was amazed to read this the same day as my last post about WWJD)
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10 NKJV)
The question is not “what WOULD Jesus do?” The question is “What DID Jesus do?” God didn’t make you good when Christ came into your life. He made you alive.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
(Ephesians 2:1 NKJV)
Your eternal life does not start when you get to Heaven. It starts when you receive Jesus. It then continues at a higher level when you get to Heaven.
And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. (1 John 5:11 NKJV)
If you have the Son of God you already have life. If you do not have the Son of God you do not have life. That means you are dead.
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12 NKJV)
Didn’t God write the Bible to help us know right from wrong? Not primarily. He wrote the Bible to help us know how we can be certain that we have eternal life.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, (1 John 5:13 NKJV)
That’s why the Great White Throne judgment of Revelation 21 includes two groups of people: those whose names are in the Book of Life and those whose names are not in the Book of Life. Those not in the Book of Life will be judged by their works. Hint: nobody does well before God if they have to make it to Heaven based on doing good and avoiding evil. The secret is to get your name in the book, not your works in the books.
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. (Revelation 20:12 NKJV)
How can dead people stand? They were physically alive but spiritually dead. They were spiritually dead because they never received Jesus. They were depending on the good they did to earn them entrance to heaven.
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15 NKJV)
The “I have done some good things in my life” approach does not work out well. The reason is because there is no life in it. The little secret is that sometimes dead people manage to do good things and alive people manage to do bad things. That is why it is called the “Book of Life” and not the “Book of Good Stuff You Do for God.”
Children’s ministry is more than presenting values that cut between right and wrong. It is about offering, explaining, and illustrating the life that comes from faith in what Jesus did for them through the cross and resurrection.
I am not content with kids merely learning how to be good. I want them to be alive in God. I want them to know they are alive in God. In simple ways as they trek through their day, I want them to experience God’s life within them. And the amazing thing is that when they (and we) experience the energy of being alive in God: some goodness will burst out when least expected.
Christianity is not about good and evil, but about life and death. Jesus did not come to make us good but to make us alive. The difference between a believer and a non-believer is not that the believer does good things and the non-believer does bad things. The prime difference is that the believer is alive and the non-believer is dead. The Bible is explicit about this from the get-go.Adam and Eve were to eat from the Tree of Life and abstain from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God wanted them to have life, not merely an ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Adam and Eve thought being smart about good and evil was more important than life from God. They were wrong then and we still make the same mistake today. Adam and Eve died the SAME DAY they ate from the wrong tree, even though they lived physically for many more years. Take a peek at Genesis 2:17.
Consequently, we are not bad people in need of goodness. We are dead people in need of life. Jesus did not come to give us an example. He came to give life. I don’t need an example; I need life. (I was amazed to read this the same day as my last post about WWJD)
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10 NKJV)
The question is not “what WOULD Jesus do?” The question is “What DID Jesus do?” God didn’t make you good when Christ came into your life. He made you alive.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
(Ephesians 2:1 NKJV)
Your eternal life does not start when you get to Heaven. It starts when you receive Jesus. It then continues at a higher level when you get to Heaven.
And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. (1 John 5:11 NKJV)
If you have the Son of God you already have life. If you do not have the Son of God you do not have life. That means you are dead.
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12 NKJV)
Didn’t God write the Bible to help us know right from wrong? Not primarily. He wrote the Bible to help us know how we can be certain that we have eternal life.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, (1 John 5:13 NKJV)
That’s why the Great White Throne judgment of Revelation 21 includes two groups of people: those whose names are in the Book of Life and those whose names are not in the Book of Life. Those not in the Book of Life will be judged by their works. Hint: nobody does well before God if they have to make it to Heaven based on doing good and avoiding evil. The secret is to get your name in the book, not your works in the books.
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. (Revelation 20:12 NKJV)
How can dead people stand? They were physically alive but spiritually dead. They were spiritually dead because they never received Jesus. They were depending on the good they did to earn them entrance to heaven.
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15 NKJV)
The “I have done some good things in my life” approach does not work out well. The reason is because there is no life in it. The little secret is that sometimes dead people manage to do good things and alive people manage to do bad things. That is why it is called the “Book of Life” and not the “Book of Good Stuff You Do for God.”
Children’s ministry is more than presenting values that cut between right and wrong. It is about offering, explaining, and illustrating the life that comes from faith in what Jesus did for them through the cross and resurrection.
I am not content with kids merely learning how to be good. I want them to be alive in God. I want them to know they are alive in God. In simple ways as they trek through their day, I want them to experience God’s life within them. And the amazing thing is that when they (and we) experience the energy of being alive in God: some goodness will burst out when least expected.
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