Go therefore and make disciples of all nations
Matthew 28:19
Here at Faith & Reason Ministries church we partner with a small number of missionaries.
For anyone new to Christianity or new to the idea of a missionary, we all know what Hollywood & popular stories say, but what is the real reason so many missionaries spend so much of their lives doing things & going places the rest of us may find uncomfortable or even dangerous? It is because we have God's love in us & we are compelled to share the Truth about that love & about forgiveness of sin.
For anyone new to Christianity or new to the idea of a missionary, we all know what Hollywood & popular stories say, but what is the real reason so many missionaries spend so much of their lives doing things & going places the rest of us may find uncomfortable or even dangerous? It is because we have God's love in us & we are compelled to share the Truth about that love & about forgiveness of sin.
Active Missionaries
Dave & Lynn Johnson
Mexico Medical Missions
Stephen & Dana DeVries
Reaching the Muslim community in Great Britain
Sin & Forgiveness
The COVID-19 response reminds me of the concern we all had over Ebola. I remember thinking people realized that it does not matter how healthy you are, or how you live your life. If you are exposed to Ebola just one time, you have a 90% chance of dying. Imagine living a healthy, safe life and then one day, you meet someone who has Ebola and unknowingly become exposed. Now you have a 9 in 10 chance of dying. That is a mortality rate of 90%. One exposure, one time.
Sin is like Ebola is one sense, all it takes is one sin, one time, and you die. Sin has a mortality rate of 100%. 10 out of 10 people who do just one sin, die. But it is nothing so nice (if I can use that word in this context) as dying from Ebola. No, sin means you die on Earth and get a new body that cannot die, which in turns lives forever in pain and fear and torment in a lake of pure fire apart from God or anything good. Sin is so horrific it makes Ebola look gentle.
There are treatments for Ebola but no cure.
Imagine there was, imagine someone could give you a 100% blood transfusion, their blood for yours. The procedure would cause them to die, but you would live and be completely free from Ebola. In fact, the procedure would mean you could never die from Ebola, ever. This is a fantasy, no such cure for Ebola exists.
But there is a cure for sin.
It requires the death of a sinless, perfect person. And that person has to be totally perfect in every way. The reality is, this cure does exist. God Himself, Jesus Christ, took on human form and lived a perfect life and then died. But He did more than die, He took on every sin of every human being who ever lived or will ever live. All humans everywhere can be totally and completely saved, forever, from all sin and all suffering. Instead of dying and spending forever in pain and fear and torment, now the cured human can live literally in the presence of God Himself and experience all that is good.
There is a catch. There is always a catch, right? Just like a doctor needs to give you a cure or treatment for any illness, you need God to give you the cure for sin. And in order to get the cure, you must want it. If I am sick and I refuse to see a doctor and I refuse to ever take any cure or medicine, the fact a cure exists means nothing to me. I die anyway. The same situation exists with sin, if I refuse the cure, I die. I spend eternity suffering. If I accept the cure, I live. It is that simple, but only because God paid the highest price.
This cure is called forgiveness.
One book in the Bible, in the New Testament, is called Romans
You can read if for yourself.
…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Rom 3:23 NAS)
The word all in the original Greek means the same thing as it does in modern English, it means all. Falling short
means you die, like a stunt driver who tries to jump a canyon and falls short, the stunt driver falls to his doom.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8 NAS)
God is real and so is His love. He has all power, yet He will not force His will upon His creation, mankind. He allows us choice. We can choose to do good or bad, as is evident by looking at people of every age, in every culture, worldwide. And we can choose to accept the cure, or reject forgiveness.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23 NAS)
Wages are what you earn for your actions. We deserve the death that results from sin. However God’s actions mean forgiveness, eternal life with God where everything good exists and we enjoy everything good.
…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; (Rom 10:9 NAS)
Getting cured is a two-step process; 1) admit God is who He says He is 2) and have faith that what you read in the Bible is true about how God paid the price we could never pay on our own.
This is so important that the Bible sums it up another way in the book of John, also in the New Testament;
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. 18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (Joh 3:16-18 NAS)
If you have questions, please ask us. We are happy to show you in the Bible the answers to your questions.
Sin is like Ebola is one sense, all it takes is one sin, one time, and you die. Sin has a mortality rate of 100%. 10 out of 10 people who do just one sin, die. But it is nothing so nice (if I can use that word in this context) as dying from Ebola. No, sin means you die on Earth and get a new body that cannot die, which in turns lives forever in pain and fear and torment in a lake of pure fire apart from God or anything good. Sin is so horrific it makes Ebola look gentle.
There are treatments for Ebola but no cure.
Imagine there was, imagine someone could give you a 100% blood transfusion, their blood for yours. The procedure would cause them to die, but you would live and be completely free from Ebola. In fact, the procedure would mean you could never die from Ebola, ever. This is a fantasy, no such cure for Ebola exists.
But there is a cure for sin.
It requires the death of a sinless, perfect person. And that person has to be totally perfect in every way. The reality is, this cure does exist. God Himself, Jesus Christ, took on human form and lived a perfect life and then died. But He did more than die, He took on every sin of every human being who ever lived or will ever live. All humans everywhere can be totally and completely saved, forever, from all sin and all suffering. Instead of dying and spending forever in pain and fear and torment, now the cured human can live literally in the presence of God Himself and experience all that is good.
There is a catch. There is always a catch, right? Just like a doctor needs to give you a cure or treatment for any illness, you need God to give you the cure for sin. And in order to get the cure, you must want it. If I am sick and I refuse to see a doctor and I refuse to ever take any cure or medicine, the fact a cure exists means nothing to me. I die anyway. The same situation exists with sin, if I refuse the cure, I die. I spend eternity suffering. If I accept the cure, I live. It is that simple, but only because God paid the highest price.
This cure is called forgiveness.
One book in the Bible, in the New Testament, is called Romans
You can read if for yourself.
…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Rom 3:23 NAS)
The word all in the original Greek means the same thing as it does in modern English, it means all. Falling short
means you die, like a stunt driver who tries to jump a canyon and falls short, the stunt driver falls to his doom.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8 NAS)
God is real and so is His love. He has all power, yet He will not force His will upon His creation, mankind. He allows us choice. We can choose to do good or bad, as is evident by looking at people of every age, in every culture, worldwide. And we can choose to accept the cure, or reject forgiveness.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23 NAS)
Wages are what you earn for your actions. We deserve the death that results from sin. However God’s actions mean forgiveness, eternal life with God where everything good exists and we enjoy everything good.
…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; (Rom 10:9 NAS)
Getting cured is a two-step process; 1) admit God is who He says He is 2) and have faith that what you read in the Bible is true about how God paid the price we could never pay on our own.
This is so important that the Bible sums it up another way in the book of John, also in the New Testament;
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. 18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (Joh 3:16-18 NAS)
If you have questions, please ask us. We are happy to show you in the Bible the answers to your questions.