If each of us made a list of our genealogy it would ultimately lead back to Adam, the first man. Since God created Adam he is Adam’s father and, by extension, our father as well. Like any father God loves his children dearly. God made all of creation for our benefit. God has given us his Word, the Bible, which is the wisdom of God so that we might know him and the salvation plan he has for us. The Bible is essentially God’s love letter to us. Every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation reveals God’s love for us through the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, coming down to the earth from heaven to redeem fallen mankind from their sins by his sacrificial death on the cross in our place. The Old Testament is Christ prophesied and the New Testament is Christ fulfilled. There are over 1000 prophecies in the Old Testament, over 500 of which have been fulfilled in the New Testament and documented as fact. Over 60 of those prophecies were about Christ and Jesus fulfilled each one which proves beyond any doubt Jesus is the Son of God. This is to prove God is who he says he is and the Bible is the truth of God.
Less than 10% of Christians who attend church regularly have read the entire bible and fewer still actually study God’s Word. How can we get to know God better if we don’t read his Word? How can we please God if we don’t know his commandments and obey them? God’s chosen way to talk to us is through his Word and if we make the conscious decision not to read the Bible we’ve chosen not to communicate with God. How crazy is that? While it’s important for Christians to to read the entire Bible, it’s critical that they read the gospels because therein lies the central theme of the Bible; the whole point of creation and human history, which is the restoration of man’s lost fellowship with God. When Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden that sin was imputed to every person who came after him. We are all born with a sin nature from Adam. We can’t wash the sin away or rub it off or do enough good works to make it go away. We’re branded with this sin and headed for spiritual death in the lake of fire because a just God has decreed that the wages of sin is death.
Our only hope is that a merciful God will save us. God is love and the magnitude of God encompasses a love for us greater than we’ll ever know or fully understand this side of heaven. A love so great that God was willing to step down from his throne in heaven, take on on human flesh in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and die a horrible death on the cross in our place so that we might have eternal life in heaven in his presence. Only God met the qualifications of a sinless sacrifice and only God can impute his righteousness to all men which results in eternal life. God loves us that much! If God loves me enough to die for me I can at least glorify God by reading about the story of my salvation contained in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as chronicled in the gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Praise God for his love, mercy and grace!
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Matthew 1:22-23 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
John 1:14 – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth.
Luke 19:10 – For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
John 10:30 – (Jesus speaking) – I and My Father are one.
Matthew 26:28 – (Jesus speaking) – For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
John 14:16 – (Jesus speaking) – I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:23 – (Jesus speaking) – If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
John 3:36 – He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
John 12:48 – (Jesus speaking) – He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.