“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” ~Hebrews 11:6
Did you catch that? We must believe that He is! How can we go to God and talk to Him if we don’t really believe He exists? We must know in our hearts — with that portion of faith we’re all born with — that He is real. We must trust in His holy word. We must believe that He keeps His word and will do everything He said He’d do. We must accept that He will lead us to the truth and deliver us from evil…and even reward us for seeking Him!
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand on the throne of God.” ~Hebrews 12:2
This verse says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. That clearly tells us we have already been endowed with a portion of faith, and also that, He, Jesus, will finish this work He started in us. All we have to do is lean on Him!
So again, we must ask…why do I need Jesus? Why not just believe in an all- powerful God sitting up in heaven? Why do we need to accept that God came to earth, became human and died for our sins? Why is this the catalyst to salvation?
Here it is in a nutshell. God created us to live with Him forever! Death wasn’t the plan, but rather the result of sin. There is only one way to overcome death, and that is through the acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus. Only through His dying in our place to pay our debt — only through His white garment (sinless life) covering our sins can we overcome, be pardoned and have eternal life. Why? Because death is the wages os sin (Romans 6:23). Someone had to die to pay for sin. Jesus chose to so we wouldn't be dead forever.
"He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” ~Revelation 3:5
We all need His plan of redemption because we all have sinned. We can not undo our sins, because we can’t undo what’s already happened. The only thing we can do is have Jesus cover them. There is no other way — no other name, no other plan, no other solution will ever exist — only Jesus. Only He can save us. That is redemption!
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” ~Acts 4:12
Here's the offer...
Jesus offers us eternity, that means to live with Him forever, but we can’t enter heaven in our filthy sinful flesh. We must first get cleaned up and changed into an acceptable going to heaven outfit — a transformed, righteous condition.
God is offering us this new garment, it’s known as the white robe of righteousness. This is the only whiteout capable of completely covering our sins. There is no other way to meet the righteous requirements of God’s word. He said right from the start, in the garden of Eden, that the price we’d pay for sin was death.
Yes, God wants to pardon us, but He can’t. He can’t go against His holy word. If He said it, it must happen. He said we will die if we sin, and that’s that. He can’t, and won’t undo His pure perfect word. Therefore, the only possible sentence for sin is the death penalty. There is no other way that God can keep His word, any other penalty would be unfair and unjust. He must keep His word to prove that it’s perfect and just.
Since God has to keep His infallible word, death had to be the result of sin. So a trade was made, Jesus, who was sin-free took our place (the place of sinful humanity) and died for us so we could become His righteousness. We get to assume His perfect, sinless identity because He chose to take our sins onto Himself, and by doing so He also took our death penalty and died in our place. We get His robe of righteousness, and He takes our sinful rags. That’s the trade.
Without this sacrifice — death and substitution for our death penalty by Jesus — we would have to stand in judgment on our own sin-filled works. We would have to be judged on our own, and we would all be found guilty. Isaiah tells us that our best works are the equivalent of filthy rags.
“But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…” ~Isaiah 64:6
In other words, on our own, when God looks at us we appear to be wearing filthy dirty, old rags. But when we accept what Jesus did on the cross, and God looks at us, He only sees Jesus. We become the likeness of Christ through this substitutional phenomenon.
There it is, God’s plan of redemption. That’s what God’s love looks like. All we have to do is accept this gift of love. That’s it. So to answer the question once and for all, why do I need Jesus? Because there is no other way.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:21
Q: Are you ready to make a trade?
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