Half Time Remarks: Part 3 of 3

The Big "C"


It's time for the Big Reveal. If The Big "C" is not about cancer, then what is the Big "C"?

Well, cancer is a little "c." It's just a circumstance. It has posed some challenges. But it has also been the vehicle of great blessings--and I'm not even done with it yet.

The Big "C" is Christ, the Name above all names, the One who can make and keep cancer a little "c" in my life, in anyone's life.


Many have remarked in the comments, through e-mail, and in person upon "Amy's faith." Something along the lines of "It's so strong. . ."

I know that, universally, all of these comments are meant to encourage and support, and I do receive them gratefully as love. But now it's half-time, and I want to clarify something:

There is nothing about me that has created this faith, that is responsible for this faith, that should be admired for this faith.

There is nothing I know about God that you cannot know.
Nothing I experience with or in God that you cannot experience.

God loves you as much as God loves me, and His desire is for you to know and experience that love.

Some of you already know God and have a relationship with Him such that you've been able to relate to a lot of what I've written.

Some of you are simply not interested. You've got your reasons. Fine.

But some of you, I do believe, are interested. There's curiosity there. Maybe some wonder, some yearning. Maybe there's some pain that could really use the kindness of a Savior. This Half Time post is for you.


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The message is this:

God created a perfect world. Then sin entered the world through the sin of one man, and all of creation suffered the consequences. There's no point in being annoyed with that first man because we all know that if he hadn't messed it up, we would have. All fall short of the glory of God--we're all imperfect creatures walking around in an imperfect world.

The worst part about our fallen state is one that we're not even naturally aware of--that our sin interrupts our relationship with God. We can't have unity with a perfect God on this side of Heaven if we are imperfect, and we can't be unified with a perfect God on the other side, either, if we are imperfect.

Cut off from our Creator. Forever. The wage of sin is death, and you and I earn that wage every day.

But there is a free gift offered by God: eternal life through Jesus Christ.

How's that?

Way back, just moments after that first sin, God promised to send a Savior through Whom people could be restored to a relationship with God.

The Bible, among other things, is a series of stories of how God worked in people's lives to communicate His love, and these stories, again and again, presented symbols and pictures of the coming Savior.

God delivered His people out of Egypt, and the symbol He used was lamb's blood.

He gave a ritual law to His people in which He described what their yearly animal sacrifice should look like--to atone for their sins, they were to shed the blood of an innocent lamb. This was a symbol of what Jesus would become.

He spoke through His prophets with specific descriptions of who, what and where the Savior would be.

Then Jesus was born. He lived a quiet life until the age of about 30. He had a public ministry of preaching and miracle working for about 3 years. Then He was crucified by Roman decree and when He died, He completed an earthly life during which He had not sinned. He was that innocent lamb. He was buried in a tomb. Then His body resurrected from the grave and He appeared--to various women, then to His other friends, then to whole crowds of people.

And now there can be "eternal life through Jesus Christ." That is, if you believe that Jesus' death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice for your sins--that He paid the price for your sins with His death--and you believe that God resurrected Him from the dead, then God no longer sees you as an imperfect sinner.

Instead, God sees you as someone whose sins have all been covered, have all been paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And you can have unity with Him--here on Earth, and after you die, in Heaven, too.

I write all this out because I don't want to assume that everyone knows the basic Christian Gospel. If you are one of those who is interested in the "God stuff," well, there it is. I hope I said enough to lay out the basic story, and I hope I have not said too much. . .

The best place for you to begin from here--for us all to begin, actually--is with 2 steps.

1. Talk to God. The only prayers He listens to are the honest ones. So if your prayer starts with, "I don't even know whether I believe in you or what I believe about you . . ." then that's the prayer to say.

2. Read the Bible. If you don't have one, you can read online at www.biblegateway.com , or you can stop by a bookstore, or you can e-mail me and I'll send you one.

You can start at the beginning and read straight through if you're feeling ambitious.

Or you can start with one of the biographies of Jesus' life: These are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

If you really like a lot of symbols and poetic language, start with John. If you want a straight-forward, nuts and bolts, Life of Jesus, start with Mark. If you want the accounts that have most of the famous stories of Jesus, including His amazing Sermon on the Mount and most of His parables, read Matthew and Luke.

And as you do these 2 things, be ready to see how God grows faith in you. Be ready to hear His voice. Be ready to get to know your Creator.