Jesus' death

[Myrrh23]

Hello!

Don’t laugh, but I don’t know why Jesus died for us. What were the reasons behind it? I always thought it was to keep God from killing all of us because of our sins. I don’t remember where I got that exactly. You see, my mother taught me that God, more or less, has a hobby of sending people to Hell. Growing up, I always feared God would send me to Hell for the slightest offense, like looking at Him the wrong way. I’m still trying to get away from that image, and my campus minister is doing a damn fine job of helping me. My mother never taught me about Jesus, and at 24 years of age, I’m trying to learn about him. For now, Jesus is a little more than a stranger to me. I’m reading The Jesus I never knew, and it’s slowly illuminating. I went to Catholic schools, but my abusive home kinda shut me down in school. I dreaded going home.
I’m very afraid to love God, because I fear that He’ll lift me up and then drop me from the great heights of spirituality when He decides I’m not good enough. Loving God, for me, is like bracing for the impact in a car crash–you know, you get that sick, tight feeling in your chest and mind.
Thanks for understanding.

Myrrh:juggle:

 

[PhilotheaZ]

God is at the same time both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. We know that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), that is, if we sinners got what was coming to us, we would suffer eternal death.

Because our sin is against an infinite God, justice requires that only an infinite atonement can make up for it, and only God can make that infinite atonement. But it is man, not God, who commits sin, so only man can atone for it. Quite a dilemma! But God in His mercy came up with the perfect solution: God became man! This God-man, Jesus, by His death made satisfaction for our sins, achieving both perfect justice and perfect mercy.

In the Old Testament, people made animal sacrifices (e.g., a sacrificial lamb) to atone for their sins; they symbolically placed their sins on the lamb. They did this repeatedly over the years. What they did symbolically, Jesus does in reality — He, the Lamb of God, takes our sins upon Himself once for all time. His one perfect sacrifice is sufficient to atone for all the sins of all people over all time. He paid the “wages of sin” for us by His death.

We can freely accept the salvation He has won for us, by choosing to live as He teaches and repent of our sins, or we can reject this salvation by clinging to our sinfulness.

By the way, I don’t agree that God “has a hobby of sending people to hell.” He loves us infinitely and desires our salvation. If we go to hell, we send ourselves there by freely rejecting God and His teachings.

God loves you immensely. He wants you to trust Him and be confident in His love. Our only fear should be of offending Him, because He is so good and we want to please Him. He understands our weakness, and just wants us to do the best we can. We should never have an irrational fear that He would ever want to condemn us. That is the furthest thing from His holy mind. His name is Mercy!

 

[PhilotheaZ]

Just to give credit where it is due — the explanation in my previous post is based on what I learned from a wonderful tape by Rosalind Moss on her conversion from Judaism to Christianity. I hope I got it right!