Suppose I decide to interview 100 people on how they got to work today.
Most people tell me they drove to work. A few people told me they took the bus. One person even tells me he biked! “Fine, fine,” I say.
But then this rather serene-looking woman walks up. I ask the regular question, “How did you get to work today?”
She says, “I took a jet.”
I look at her a little funny and say, “No you didn’t.”
She says, “Wait a minute, how do you know I didn’t?”
I say, “Well, I don’t see a jet anywhere.”
She says, “It’s parked just behind the building. I’ll show it to you if you want.”
I say, “You’ll show me the jet? That’s real funny. Really, how did you get here?”
“Really,” she says, “I took a jet.”
I’m getting irritated now. “Really,” I say, “how did you get here?”
She looks a little surprised. “I took a jet. It’s the best way to travel.”
I stick out my lower jaw and I am really getting annoyed. “It is not the best way to travel,” I say.
“How do you know?” she asks.
“Because I don’t travel that way!” I shout. “And besides, you do not have a jet! There’s no way. Your clothes came from a thrift shop and you didn’t even get a decent haircut! YOU DON’T HAVE A JET!”
She crinkles her forehead. “. . . What do my clothes and haircut have to do with me taking a jet? Oh! You mean I’m not rich enough?” She laughs. “You’re right about that. I don’t have any money to pay for a jet. No, no. The jet is free.”
I narrow my eyes. “The jet is free. Yeah, right. Next thing you’re going to tell me you take a rocket ship back home.”
“No,” she says confidently. “Just the jet.”
I sigh and set my jaw. “I’m going to ask you this question again. How did you get to work—AND DON’T SAY A JET!”
She blinks a few times. “Well, I can’t really say anything then.”
“Fine!” I say. “You’re disqualified! You don’t get to be in the statistics I’m writing! SO THERE!”
She blinks a few more times.
“. . . Ok,” she says. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that I got here in a jet.”
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The idea of a loving God who freely gives us salvation through the sacrifice of His only Son on a cross . . . seems more impossible to believe than that an ordinary woman could arrive to work on a free jet. And yet . . . the free gift of Jesus’ payment for our sin because of His vast love is the foundation of the Bible and the heartbeat of Christianity.
Paul explains our God well:
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.'” (Acts 17:24-28a, NIV)
And how we can have a miraculous, unthinkable, unbelievable friendship with Him because of His unimaginable determination to open the only Way possible back to Him:
Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.
But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:1-10, NLT)
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4, NIV)
Find out more from God Himself . . .
Read the Bible (this link starts at John 1)
Find out more from Christ-followers . . .
Find out more, and talk to a person (if you want)
Watch clips of Christian answers to lots of questions
Read answers to questions about Jesus
Short videos investigating Christianity
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek
Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims: Approaches to Christian Apologetics by Gordon Lewi
Can We Trust the Gospels? by Mark D. Roberts
The Case for Faith, The Case for Christ, and The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
Hard Questions, Real Answers by William Lane Craig
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