The story surrounding the person, life, and message of Jesus Christ has intrigued and fascinated people from all walks of life for the last 1900 years. Today, millions of people from all over the world follow and worship Him, as His teachings and the spiritual life He offers have impacted individuals, cultures, empires, and nations in a manner that has altered the course of human history to a staggering degree. He only had a ministry and teaching that lasted three years and He left behind no established or organized church. This Jesus claimed to be equal with God, yet He allowed Himself to be executed as a criminal. He had the power to raise the dead and calm the storm on the sea, yet Jesus willingly gave up His own life for you and me. He came as a "Suffering-Servant," yet He offers us an abundant life of joy and peace unmatched by anything this world affords.
Thru faith in Him, Christ empowers us to persevere thru the trials of life; to find healing where we've been wounded; to overcome the ugliness of our own pride, jealousy, anger, and lusts; to know the forgiveness and peace of a holy God; to find in our hearts the love of God for all people; and to rest in an unshakable trust that the God of the universe cares and provides for us. Jesus Christ also empowers us thru the hope He offers in life after death, and in His promise that one day He will come back and bring an end to the suffering and evil of our world, when He returns to judge the living and the dead.
During His life, He was rejected by the religious leaders of His day, and His public ministry lasted only three years. He was falsely accused and sentenced to cruxificion (execution by being nailed to a wooden cross). After His arrest and during His trial, He was abandoned by His friends, and by the end of His life, Jesus had nothing left to His name. He died leaving behind no possessions and His following had seemingly died out. Ironically, after Jesus died, His followers were radically transformed. Amidst their best efforts of devotion to Him while He was alive, they were greatly hindered by their own self-centeredness and fears. But after Jesus was executed, His teachings sunk in with power in the lives and faith of His followers, called disciples, and later known as Christians.
These disciples had sought the highest positions of importance for themselves and wanted to call fire down from heaven on those who opposed their leader. After Jesus died, however, they became known as men and women who loved their enemies, who embraced servanthood, who joyfully gave up their worldly possessions, and who were willing to die for their faith. What changed them and why did it happen after Jesus died? First, they saw Jesus risen from the dead and He appeared to them over a period of forty days before ascending back to heaven where He came from. Second, Jesus sent the Spirit of God upon them to empower His followers to live godly lives and take His message and His love to a lost and troubled world.
The life and message of Jesus Christ are explained in the book known today as the Bible. This book is made up of sixty-six smaller books, four of which are called "the Gospels." The Gospels were written by His followers back in the first century, and these books along with the rest of the Bible reveal who Jesus is and the message of His life, death, and resurrection. The word gospel means “good news.” This refers to the good news found in the person of Jesus Christ. To better understand the power and relevance of this “good news" it is helpful to read the summary of Jesus’ life below.
The Gospels teach us that Jesus Christ is God the Son who has always existed. He is one person with two natures. He is God and man, who entered into human history about 2000 years ago. He was born of the virgin named Mary, a young Jewish woman living in Israel, pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. Mary was made pregnant by the power of God the Holy Spirit (Jesus had no biological earthly father). She gave birth to Christ in a small town called Bethlehem, and later she and Joseph raised Jesus in the town of Nazareth.
Around the age of thirty, Jesus started a public ministry of preaching, teaching and miraculous healings that lasted for three years. He chose twelve of His followers to be His “apostles” (ones who were appointed and sent out as His representatives and who later became church leaders and missionaries). During His public ministry, Jesus prepared them to carry on His work after He left this earth by discipling them along the way. There were also many women who traveled with them and supported them financially out of their own means.
This Jesus of Nazareth was the long awaited Messiah for Israel. (Both "Messiah" and "Christ" mean the "anointed one." The Jews knew that the king or savior they were waiting for would be anointed by God's spirit with power and wisdom, and so they referred to their coming savior and king as the "Messiah" or "the Christ"). This Messiah was to be the Savior the Jewish people had been waiting for to deliver them from their oppression in this world, and who would reign with justice as King over all the earth. The coming of this Messiah to earth had been predicted by the Hebrew (or Jewish) prophets for hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. The Jewish people of the first century were expecting a king to come and deliver them from the clutches of the Roman Empire (a political and military Savior if you will). Instead, Christ came as the "Suffering-Servant” to reveal the God of heaven and earth and His will for mankind thru the gospel message, to satisfy the penalty that God's justice demands for our rebellion against Him, and to restore God’s people to a right fellowship or relationship with Him (called "salvation"). Christ also came to empower His disciples with His Spirit to take the good news of salvation to a lost world, the love of God to an evil world, and the light of God to a dark world.
The religious leaders of the day, however, grew jealous, afraid and threatened by Jesus. His popularity seemed to be increasing amidst the crowds who followed Him, thru the miracles He performed and the authority by which He taught the Word of God. With that, Jesus was preaching a message which proclaimed Himself as God the Son, who has always existed, who is equal to God the Father. This was something His own people (especially the religious leaders) could not accept: a man claiming to be God. The Bible teaches us that there is one God who is three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In our limited or finite minds, we cannot fully understand this mystery or the mystery of Christ as the God-Man, but we accept it by faith. If we as finite (limited)beings could fully understand an infinite God, He would not be God.
Now in His gospel message, Jesus also preached repentance (which means a change of heart and direction in life) and a total surrender of one’s life to God by faith. The more this gospel message sunk in, the less popular His words became among the religious leaders and the crowds who had begun to follow Him. Eventually these religious leaders were able to win over the crowds to their point of view, and convince their local Roman governor named Pontius Pilate that Jesus was a threat to King Caesar (the ruler of the Roman Empire), because He himself claimed to be a king. Jesus was arrested, falsely accused, beaten beyond recognition, and then, by the order of Pontius Pilate, Christ was nailed to a cross between two thieves (a cruel form of execution reserved for the lowliest of criminals).
After three hours of His suffering on the cross, darkness covered the earth. After a total of six hours, Jesus Christ gave up his last breath and died. An earthquake shook the ground. The curtain in the Jewish temple where the Jews would worship was supernaturally torn in two from top to bottom. That curtain separated the most holy place inside the temple from the rest of the sanctuary, representing humanity’s spiritual and relational separation from God. The tearing of this temple showed that Christ’s death had paid the penalty and provided the reconciliation needed to rescue us from God's wrath and judgment that is coming upon this world, due to our unbelief and rebellion against God.
Little did Christ’s enemies know that they were carrying out the plan of the all-knowing and all-powerful God of heaven. God the Father took the sins of the whole world [that is our unbelief, rebellion, pride, spiritual blindness, self-centeredness, selfishness, idolatry (worship of other gods, love of self or things of this world), greed, lust, racism, gossip, adultery, hate, murder, bitterness, theft, lies, etc.] and laid them on His Son Jesus Christ, as He hung on that cross and died. Christ laid down His life willingly and paid the price for the penalty we deserve. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). In giving up His life, Jesus has rescued those who believe in Him from the wrath and judgment of God that is coming upon the whole human race. This world is headed for judgment, when God brings this age (or this world as we know it) to an end as Jesus returns to set up His kingdom (or reign) here on earth.
This Jesus died on a Friday afternoon about 1970 years ago, but early that Sunday morning, God raised the author of life, Jesus Christ, back from the dead. He appeared in His resurrected body to over 500 people during a period of 40 days and then ascended back to heaven. One day He will return in great power and glory, just the opposite of how He came the first time (in humility and weakness). Jesus will come back to set up His eternal kingdom and to judge the living and the dead. In the mean time, Jesus has commanded all those who put their faith in Him to take this gospel message He began preaching over 1900 years ago in the small towns of Galilee and in Jerusalem, and share it around the world with all who are willing to hear.
It is this person, Jesus Christ who said, “I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life, I am the way and the truth and the life.” He is the One who said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 8:12; 6:35; 14:6; 16:33). If you would like to learn more about (or experience for yourself) the life-changing power of knowing and following Jesus Christ by faith, we encourage you to continue reading the following links below, or to contact us thru the information provided below. (Note: at the end of "the Gospel" webpage, we have a prayer posted that will help guide you in giving your life to Jesus Christ, if that is what you are ready to do and have never done so before, of if you need to recommit your life to Christ at this time). May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you with the joy and peace there is in knowing Jesus Christ and the hope there is in the eternal life promised to His followers when we die.
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me
has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from
death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has
now come when the dead will hear the voice of the
Son of God and those who hear will live.”
--- Jesus Christ (John 5:24-25)
Listed below are Links to different Topics related to Spiritual Life & the Bible:
Who is Jesus? For an introduction to the Person of Jesus Christ click on:
www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/WhoisJesus.dsp
The Gospel: For information on the Message of Jesus Christ
and the hope & spiritual strength that He offers click on:
www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/TheGospel.dsp
The Bible Story: To read more about the relevance and reliability of the Bible,
the Creation of the world, and God's intervention in human history click on:
www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/TheBibleStory.dsp
Spiritual Life: To read more about the origins and problems of evil & suffering
in this world and the answers found thru faith in Jesus Christ click on: www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/SpiritualLife.dsp
Devotional: "One Solitary Life"
www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/OneSolitaryLife.dsp
Devotional: "God the Son Becomes a Man"
www.LakeRegionBibleChurch.org/PastorsDevotional.dsp
For more information or for spiritual help please contact:
Pastor: Marcus Johnson (847) 546-5409
Email: EFCAMarcus@sbcglobal.net
Youth Minister: Karl Anderson (847) 546-5409
Email: Karlj16@sbcglobal.net
