That’ll be Christianity for $200 Alex…

Roscoe here, a Christian in Training.

I had another piece of the puzzle click into place this afternoon.  In fact, in a way we hit the Daily Double!

I was driving up to the boat this afternoon and K-LUV was starting to fade and skip on the radio so I turned it down a bit and started talking to God.  You know, there is one good thing about cell phones and wireless headsets; nowadays, when someone sees you talking to yourself inside your car they no longer think your oyster has slid off its cracker they just assume that you’re talking to someone on the phone.  So you can talk to god all you want and no one is the wiser…

So anyway,  God and I were having a nice long conversation today and he gave me a prize winner!  Remember, Matthew 13:12 NLT states “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.  But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.”

You see, I have been steadily working on my faith and I’ve always had a sticking point when it came to the role of Christ.  I couldn’t understand the ‘WHY’ in the crucifixion of Christ.  Nothing ever made ‘sense’ to me.  Now Cindy, she just believed from day one and never doubted for a second.  Me?  I am a slow one.  But what the Lord presented to me this afternoon just made sense!  Now if you’re a Preacher, a priest or someone else that has spent eons studying this, you may be in line for a chuckle but here goes.

Prior to Christ, there were many ‘religions’, many ‘gods’ and many blood sacrifices.  In fact, they were being made all of the time.  Basically all religions of that time were almost pagan in nature.  We as a human race needed to come up to the next level and God needed to show that he was the one true God and the other religions were indeed pagan and false.  So God sent Jesus Christ to be the final sacrifice.  Jesus’ blood ended sacrifices forever and brought the message of God’s love to us all.  From that day, Our religion became different from the others in a very distinct way.  We were now a religion of God’s love and the promise he made was through Jesus Christ.

Now this may seem simplistic, or it may not make sense to you but it does to me.  And my feeling is that if it increases my faith in God it is a good thing.

Oh yeah.  I mentioned the Daily Double earlier.

Let me explain.

After I had my epiphany I called Cindy to share it with her because we had been discussing this just the other day.  She could not explain the ‘why he had to be sacrificed’ issue either.  So when I explained my new understanding to her she immediately and emphatically agreed.  She also told me that a puzzle for her had also been answered.

Hers involved the scripture Matthew 17:20 NLT.  “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them.  “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move.  Nothing would be impossible.”  This had always confused Cindy because as of yet, no one has moved a real mountain through faith alone.

Turns out, while Cindy was with a friend of ours the other day, they discussed this very subject. Our friend explained it to Cindy this way.  The mountain in the scripture is not a ‘real’ mountain.  It is the obstacles in your life that appear to be ‘mountains’.  Your faith in God is what will move those ‘mountains’ in your life.  Your relationship with him will determine how successful you will be at governing the events that shape your life.

It just made sense to Cindy.  All of a sudden ‘it’ just became clear.

So two seemingly simple concepts that had had both of us stymied for years suddenly became clear to us.  We won the Daily Double!

By the way.  Thank you God!