Christian Understanding
Essay by mhill09 • December 10, 2012 • Essay • 980 Words (4 Pages) • 892 Views
The Christian religion is fiercely based on salvation, sin, and grace. In order to successfully understand life one must grasp the concept of salvation, sin, and grace, which seem to work one in the same. Though a lot of Christians believe other wise the New Testament of the bible shows a Christian's religious growth first begins at their salvation where they acknowledge the death of Jesus for the sins of all mankind. This leads to the overwhelming need of God's grace because even though Christians strive to be good they still sin. Grace is what ties salvation and sin together. It is impossible for a Christian to live peacefully and prosperous with out depending solely on God's grace.
A Christian must begin to acknowledge that they cannot and do not have the ability and resources to save their selves. It is entirely God's efforts and his doings. A Christian's responsibility is to believe in Him and received all that He has accomplished for the human race. In life Jesus says that after receiving salvation you are "destined to reign." Christians are called by the Lord to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health, and to enjoy a life of victory. However Christians have to except Jesus' grace as a free gift. If a Christian understands grace and its principals, they will see how easy and effortless the Christian walk really is. In the bible God states that "He has called you to be the head not the tail"(Deuteronomy 28:13). Therefore in a Christian's life, God wants you to reign. When you reign in life, you reign over sin, you reign over the powers of darkness, and you reign over depression, over poverty, over every curse, and over every sickness and disease. Christians should reign over the devil and all his devices
Though grace is now a free gift a lot of Christians struggle with the belief that it is a free gift. Due to the struggles in the Old Testament. In the new testament Paul spent much of his time in prison. Paul speaks of the sufferings for the gospel (2 Timothy 1:8-9). "To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands; Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure" (1 Corinthians 4:11-12).
This is the very opposite of what a lot of Christians now believe presenting. Paul further describes in 2 Cor. 11:23-28: that he received "stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."
Paul is the author of grace teachings in the New Testament and yet he says the very opposite of receiving grace as a free gift. You see Paul asking to be healed three times. God gave Paul grace but he was not healed. A lot of Christians believe that there was chastening so God could deal with pride within Paul. Christians question, If Jesus was a
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