In the post How to Have God in Your Life, we learned that man was created without sin and, as such, we were able to interact directly with God. We also learned that man was created with free will. He could choose a relationship with his Creator or, he could choose something else. You will remember that to give us a choice, God gave His enemy Satan direct access to every man and woman. As we know, Satan, through an act of deceit, induced man’s original sin, separating us from God; a separation that has passed through each generation, all the way down to you and me.
With that background, let’s think about Easter. At Easter, Christians celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. Why did Jesus die on the cross? He died to pay the penalty for your sins and mine, and to provide a means through which we can once again enjoy a personal relationship with God. To understand this, we have to consider two things. First, God is just. He will respect our decisions; we may choose His way, or we may choose our own way. Either way, God will respect our choices; He will expect too, that we accept the consequences of those choices. Second, God is loving. Once man had sinned, God set about creating a means by which man could voluntarily return to Him. In God’s eyes, man had to be forgiven, “justified,” so that we could once again stand sinless before Him. And, because God is totally Just, that couldn’t happen until someone paid the penalty for man’s sin. Without Jesus, we alone would pay that penalty. Because of Jesus, that penalty is paid for us. All we must do is to believe that Jesus died in our place, and be willing to turn away from our sin (to repent). If we do that, God stands ready to forgive us completely. The early church called this plan for man’s redemption, simply “The Way.” In this Easter season, we Christians celebrate the wonderful news that Jesus made The Way, by paying for our sins on the cross, He has created a way for us to stand blameless before a Holy God.
Each of us is born with a innate desire for God. The seventeenth century philosopher, Blaise Pascal, put it this way, “There is a God sized hole in every human being … and we keep trying to fill it with something else. How about you? All you have to do to receive God’s total forgiveness is ask for it; to believe that Jesus was nailed to the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. God sacrificed His own Son to bring you back to Him. He provided “The Way” … all you must do is follow!