The 10 Steps Between You and Jesus

The thing I like most about Christianity is how refreshingly, phenomenally uncomplicated it is. If you’re a Christian, the entirety of the Christian narrative for you boils down to these successive points:

1. God created you.

2. God gave you autonomy.

3. God gave you free will (without which you cannot be autonomous).

4. An inevitable by-product of free will and autonomy are such things as selfishness, guilt, existential angst, self-doubt, loneliness, and an unceasing need for affirmation.

5. Selfishness, guilt, existential angst, self-doubt, loneliness, and an unceasing need for affirmation are profoundly unpleasant to experience, and make you do all kinds of crazy things that hurt yourself and others.

6. You’re just like everyone else.

7. People hurting themselves and others creates a tremendous amount of pain and suffering in the world.

8. God, loving people, hates to see them suffer.

9. God needed a way to relieve people of their suffering without violating their free-will.

10. Jesus was that way.

Jesus allows you to be relieved of your suffering: of your shame, your guilt, your grief, your angst, your fear. Relieving you of all that sort of thing –  allowing you to be right with God again, so that you can be happy again — is why Jesus came. Establishing that rinse-and-repeat cycle  for us all is what Jesus did.

The Christian believe system is fantastic. It works. The fact that it works is why there are so many Christians in the world.

Two billion people can’t all be wrong!

May God bless and be with you today, all day.

 

 

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