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                  The Basic Concept of Christianity

                         by Bill McGinnis
                         


     "If you are ready to receive these thoughts,
      I pray the Lord will deliver them to you."


1.  There is one God, Creator of the universe and everything within it.
    God exists outside of time and has total power over all things.

2.  For His own reasons, God created mankind and gave us free will, to
    make choices without interference from Him.

3.  The very first thing we did was to use this free will to rebel from
    God, that is, to go against His instructions to us. By our rebellion,
    we alienated ourselves from Him and cut ourselves off from the
    wonderful existence He had prepared for us with Him in His
    kingdom.
    
4.  In the life of every person, there is a cosmic drama going on: Will
    this person end his rebellion against the will of God and return
    to God, or will he persist in rebellion and be forever cut off from
    fellowship with God?  God is very interested in this drama, and He
    wants each of us to choose to come back to Him.  But He will not
    interfere, and He will not make Himself so obvious that only one
    choice is possible.

5.  The means for us to return to God is this: Accept His son Jesus 
    as our personal saviour, give up our rebellion, repent of our
    offenses against His will, and let the personality of Jesus
    take control of our life.  (The personality of Jesus is called
    "the Holy Spirit.") If we do these things, we will be 
    forgiven for all of our wrongdoing, the Holy Spirit
    will dominate within us, and we will return to joyful fellowship
    with God, forever, in His kingdom.

6.  God has provided us with complete instructions for our life, and
    these are contained within His Word, that is, the Bible, in its
    present form as we have it today. Without the Holy Spirit in us
    it is very difficult (maybe impossible) to understand the Bible.
    With the Holy Spirit, however, we will be given understanding of 
    parts of the Bible as we need it and are ready for it.

7.  Our proper relationship with God is this:  He is God, we are the
    humans.  He is the Creator, we are the created.  He is the boss,
    we are the servants. Our only purpose is to please Him.  If we
    voluntarily accept His plan for us, and go along with His
    program, He will provide for all of our needs and give us happiness 
    beyond our fondest dreams forever. If not, we will be totally cut
    off from Him and filled with bitter regret, forever. The key
    to the whole thing is accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour
    of our life.


                              # # #

   
  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
   whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life." (John 3:16)
   

December 11, 1996

bmcgin@adams.patriot.net
http://www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/gospelgate.html