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Synopsis from atstracts.org

Luis Palau's never-changing message.

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Thanks in part to popular fictional books like The DaVinci Code, many Americans are confused about who Jesus Christ is and what it means to follow Him. While most believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, for instance, 42 percent believe that when He lived on earth, “Jesus Christ was human and committed sins, just like other people.” How contrary to the facts!

Who is Jesus?

The message of classic Christianity is centered in a person—Jesus Christ. You can have Confucianism without Confucius, Buddhism without Buddha, and Judaism without Abraham or Moses. But Christianity is different.

            Relationship with Jesus Christ is the origin, motivation, and goal of the classic Christian faith. Everything about Christianity is determined by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Its teachings are teachings about Him. He is the source of its ideas. He was the origin and will be the fulfillment of its hopes. Christianity includes belief that Jesus Christ is alive, that He is divine, and that He is still inviting us to know Him personally.

            Jesus Christ’s claim of divinity is the most extreme claim anyone ever made. Of all the great sages and prophets throughout world history, Jesus alone claimed to be God-become-man. Other religions are a matter of man seeking and struggling toward God. Christianity is what God has done for man in seeking him and reaching down to help him.

What exactly do Christians believe about Jesus?

First, Christians believe in Christmas. When Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb and born nine months later, God Himself entered human history.

Second, Christians believe in Good Friday. After

three to four years of ministering throughout Palestine, Jesus Christ told His disciples that He would be arrested, convicted, and crucified on a Roman cross.

Jesus willingly died to bring people into a right relationship with God by paying the penalty for their sins, granting them the promise of eternal life, making them part of God’s family forever, and giving them free access to God through prayer.

Third, Christians believe in Easter. After three days in a tomb Jesus Christ rose from the dead, appeared to His disciples repeatedly over a period of forty days, then met together with hundreds of followers before ascending back to heaven.

            According to a Newsweek cover story: “By any measure, the resurrection of Jesus is the most radical of Christian doctrines. His teachings, His compassion for others, even His martyr’s death—all find parallels in other stories and religious traditions. But no other historical figure has ever claimed to be God and risen from the dead.”

To truly experience Jesus Christ’s divinity, one has to believe what the apostle Paul wrote: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...He was buried...and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6a) and “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:5-6a).

One of us?

In Jesus, God became one of us. God incarnate (Jesus) shared a common name with thousands of other Jewish boys—yet for all practical purposes He remained a stranger. For thirty years almost no one outside Nazareth knew Him, let alone grasped His divine identity.

            To be certain, Jesus’ manner and character impressed many in His town. He epitomized the Jewish ideals of truthfulness, wisdom, reverence, and love. But no one—perhaps only His widowed mother—knew He was God in a human body.

            Shortly after turning thirty years of age, however, Jesus embarked on a most difficult task—revealing His true identity to a people long convinced that God was in His heaven, period.

            Jesus revealed God’s desire for nearness to us. How much closer could He have come than by becoming one of us? Jesus was perfect. Without sin. Full of emotion. Fully God and at the same time fully human.

            I reject the misconception popular in certain pseudo-religious circles that Jesus was passionless, mild, weak. How pathetic—and how utterly unsupported by the earliest historical records, which paint vivid pictures of Jesus’ emotions. Here is a man who loves and rebukes, who laughs and cries. Far from a caricature, we see Jesus four-dimensionally and fully alive.

Jesus wasn’t simply a first-century wonder-worker, either. He didn’t perform magic shows. His earthly miracles were pointed and purposeful because they were all related to the kingdom of heaven.

            In his gospel, St. John calls these miracles “signs.” Signs of what? Signs of God’s mercy and power. Signs that demand a response: Do you believe Jesus is God-become-man, or not?

What will your response be?

The Bible says we’re all invited to humble ourselves before God and in prayer:

•         To tell God that we believe in the good news (gospel) of Jesus Christ—all that Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter really mean.

•         To ask God for His free gift of salvation—complete forgiveness of sins, an absolutely cleansed conscience, a new heart, God’s indwelling presence, eternal life, and a warm welcome into God’s family forever.

Jesus paid for our sins by His blood shed on the cross, and we can live eternally with Him in heaven because He conquered death. God loves us so much He sacrificed His own Son so we could live with Him forever. Are you ready to accept God’s gift of eternal life in heaven? You can pray a simple prayer of faith, like the one on the back page.

“Thank You, Lord, for preparing a place for me in heaven. I confess my failure and sins to You. Thank You that Jesus died on the cross and took away all my shame and guilt and forgave all my past, present and future sins by His shed blood. Thank You most of all that Jesus rose from the dead.

From God is Relevant by Luis Palau. Copyright ©1997 by Luis Palau. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Book Publishing Group, Inc.