belief

I love talking about my faith.  However, sometimes it is difficult.  Not because I have a problem with doing so, I just know the people I am talking to.  Especially co-workers. 

I have a real good friend at work that I always joke around with.  He is Agnostic.  He believes in a higher power, just doesn't know what it is and if we were to even know about it.  Another gentleman walked in and somehow we all started just talking about it.

We all started talking about our individual faith and what we believe.  I told them I believe in three things.
1)That their is a God
2) That Jesus Christ was the Son of God, born of a virgin and sacrificed for our sins, being raised from the dead on the 3rd day
3)Love

My friend asked me how I came to these conclusions.  He asked if it was because of the Bible, which I replied "no."

Even if you take the Bible out of the equation, I believe in Jesus Christ.  There is no doubt in my mind he existed.  Heck, not even Jewish history denies His existence.  So the only factor we have to decide on is if Jesus did die on the cross, rose from the dead and then ascended into heaven.

Lets think about this.  Without the Bible, the story of Christ was passed down from generation to generation. Knowing, based on history, that Jesus existed as well as the 12 disciples.  These 12 Apostles died for this.  Not only died for it, but were given a torturous death.

Peter was crucified upside down in Rome.  He felt unworthy to die the same way as his Saviour, so he requested to be crucified upside down.

Timothy, who was trying to stop a riot from worshipping pagans, was beaten and drug through the streets.  Then they stoned him to death.

James, brother of John, was beheaded in the book of Acts.

The stories go on pretty much like this.  They were all crucified.  These men, that had seen Jesus die then resurrected, spread this news around the world.  Neither one of them were killed together, so it was not as if they thought to themselves collectively to stick to their story.

There is one more person that intrigues me as well.  Saul, also known as Paul.  Paul never saw any of what the Apostles saw.  He was actually a persecutor of those who preached about Jesus.  However, something changed his mind and he was willing to die for this.  Being of Roman citizenship, he was given a merciful death by being beheaded.

This is why I believe in Jesus.  Because the mere fact that I don't believe that these men would think to themselves, "hey, lets come up with this fake story so people can get rich off of it in 2000 years."

None of them recanted their statements, nor did they deny what they saw.  They could have just as easily done so and probably just spent life in prison. 

But they didn't.  So this tells me something.  They saw something.  Something significant changed Paul's mind about persecuting Christians and converted himself to one, willing to die for it. 

This something had to be Jesus.  It had to have happen. 

This is why I believe in the story of Jesus.  I told my friend this at work today.  He didn't say much.  I pray though that maybe he'll think about it. 

I'll save why I believe in 'love' for a later date.

::listening to Coldplay::