BS1P - WHY DOES JESUS MATTER FOR US TODAY?
You’ll remember from the study called “God’s Dilemma” that once God had given the rulership (or dominion) over the earth to men and women He could not and would not take that back (for the word of a king is irrevocable). Instead, God developed an ingenious plan to reverse the terrible consequences of sin that are still going on today.
From God’s perspective, what is the state of every person who is born into this world? Make a list of what each verse says about us.
Psalm 53:3 / Isaiah 53:6a / Isaiah 64:6 / Romans 3:23
But, from our perspective, we think we are “good people with a few flaws”. What is the reality in God’s eyes?
1 John 1:8
Until we understand our “sin problem” we won’t be able to see our need for Jesus (which means Savior). The sin problem is this:
- We are men and women who have inherited a sin nature from our parents who in turn received that same sin nature from their parents --- all the way back to Adam and Eve.
Psalm 51:5 - Being born with a sin nature means we just naturally sin whether we realize it or not. No one ever needs to teach a child to be naughty. It comes naturally because we can’t do anything else but sin.
Romans 5:12 - Because we are “born in sin” it means we are spiritually dead and without the life of God’s Spirit within us the way God originally planned.
Genesis 2:17(The death written of here is spiritual death, not physical) - We can try all we want to be good and reverse this trend, but we will eventually fail. Everyday we sin in some thought, word, or deed --even if we think no one else is affected. So, we can look good to others, but God is never fooled.
Revelation 3:1 - All sin is against God. Other people might not see what we have thought, or heard what we said and did --- but God, who is omnipresent, sees it all.
Psalm 51:4 - Because all sin is against God, we will have to stand before Him at the judgment to account for what we have thought, said, and done against Him, other people, and even to ourselves.
2 Corinthians 5:10
That’s our “sin-problem” and why we need God’s solution for it provided in his Son Jesus. The fact that Adam and Eve were deceived into thinking that they could live their lives better on their own, without God, must have broken God’s heart. Men and women were, and still are, the “apple of God’s eye”. Therefore, His plan to come down to earth as Jesus was going to be the bridge allowing any or all of us to be restored to the way we were originally created – walking through life with God’s Spirit within us. Jesus is God’s plan for every person to be “saved from their sin problem” --- but a plan that won’t violate our free will.
Jesus, being fully God and fully man, was going to be the bridge for any of us who would choose to walk over it. So……it’s important to have an accurate understanding of who Jesus is because our eternal destiny depends on Him.
In the next studies we’ll start to dig into the question: “What was Jesus Like?”
Next Study: BS2-WHAT WAS JESUS LIKE?