The Gospel: God Loves Us Like Jesus

You are an amazing person.  You have a lot in common with other people, but there is nobody quite like you.

• You have a body.  Head, fingers, toes, belly button.
• You have a soul.  You think.  You feel.  You want.
• You have a spirit.  You can reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and desires.  You can decide what kind of person you want to be.

God is amazing.  We are like God, but God is not like us.

• Our whole universe — including us! — is like a small part of God’s body.
• He knows everything that happens to us.  He feels everything we feel.  He wants us to know Him, and enjoy the life He give us..
• He has a Spirit that our spirits can talk to, and hear from.

Two thousand years ago, God did something very special to help us know Him and the kind of life He wants us to enjoy.  He sent His Spirit to a woman named Mary, who gave birth to a baby named Jesus.  This is what we celebrate every Christmas.

Jesus had a body and a soul just like you.  But He was filled completely with God’s Spirit.  Jesus was God putting Himself into a small piece of the universe, like an author writing himself into his own book.

Jesus loved people, especially children.  He taught us who God is and what His life is like. He did miracles and forgave people their sins.  He also criticized religious leaders for not showing people what God was really like.

Those religious leaders got angry and had Jesus crucified on a cross. This was a bad thing; the worst thing that ever happened.  But God intended it to happen, so that He could do a very good thing; the best thing that has ever happened: Jesus rose from the dead!  This is what we celebrate every Easter.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, His followers became convinced that everything he had said about God and life was true.  They gave up everything and suffered incredible hardships so that you and I would hear and believe what Jesus showed them:

That the God who made the universe — and you — loves us just as much as Jesus does.  And that they very best life we can lead is to give up everything to love others the way Jesus does, so that they too can hear and believe.  That is how we show God how much we love Him.

And that is why you are getting baptized.  To show God that you are willing to die to your own soul, in order to live by His Spirit.

Are you ready?