We live in a world where we have become experts at taking life away: guns, murder, abortions, euthanasia, letter bombs, car bombs, nuclear bombs, enough arsenal to kill our many times over. It’s tragic that for ours, arguably the most-civilised age of history, we have become more adept in taking life than preserving it.

Indeed it seems ironic, because whether we realise it or not, deep-down, our world is profoundly pro-life. Life jackets, car air-bags, baby-monitors, ‘Speed kills’ signs, fire-alarms, ambulances, doctors, nurses and fire-fighters are all committed to saving or protecting life.

And we can add to these examples our gigantic medical advances with millions poured into research to prevent disease and find cures to cancer, heart-disease, AIDS/HIV and so on.

BUT for all these efforts, there’s still a 100% mortality rate. Everyone born dies. We are impotent to stop death.

What would our world give to find a cure, to find just someone, anyone who could stop all this, who could not just prevent disease, but cure it, who could not just prolong life, or even put an end to death, but bring loved ones back from the dead?

2,000 years ago a man came healing disease, all kinds of disease, making the lame walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear and raising the dead back to life. This man is Jesus. Jesus is Pro-life, anti-death.

By dying on the cross and rising again, Jesus conquered sin, Satan and humanity’s last enemy, death. Jesus came to bring not just life, but life to the full. Life in heaven, where there will be no more tears, pain sickness, hunger, suffering or death. His death put death to death. Jesus offers new, perfect, indestructible life to our world, free-of-charge. The proof of this is that he was raised to life, never to die again.

All religions aren’t the same. Jesus is unique. No one else has been raised to everlasting life. Not Mohammad nor Buddha nor Confucius! They are still dead in their graves.

John 3:16 says: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’. Do you want life? Not just life, but life to the full? Then put your trust in Jesus Christ.

If you say that Jesus is for losers, then you are absolutely right.  But what do you mean by loser?

If by losers you mean those nerdy kids with the high pants, pale skin and thick glasses – OR those people who stay at home and never go out clubbing – OR those people who never ‘chuck a sickie’ or bludge on the boss’s dollar – OR those gullible people chasing after miracles … then absolutely.

OR if by losers you mean those guys who drive about in cars with lowered suspension, caps and hoodies on, and the music drowning out the neighbourhood – OR those girls who spend their lives chasing the latest fashion and make-up – OR those gangs who wreak havoc and tempt young guys into crime – OR those high powered couples who have money to burn but don’t know what stage their children are up to … then absolutely.

You see, we call people losers because of what we define as important … from our perspective.  BUT it is not our perspective that is important.  The perspective that matters is the one that defines a loser across the globe … and has the power to deal with losers … and that’s God’s perspective.

As far as God is concerned all of humanity are losers because of their rebellion against him … because of their refusal to acknowledge him as God … because of what the Bible calls, their sin.

And, according to God, sinners – losers – are ‘going down’.

But God is not that heartless.  In fact God has provided a way out for losers … for sinners.  Though we don’t deserve it, God has provided a way for sinners to be forgiven by God … and it is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us that “… God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ dies for us” (Romans 5:8).

Jesus died on the cross for losers … for sinners … so that we have a way to God … a way into relationship with the living God.  He befriended and died for cheats, prostitutes, adulterers, the wealthy, the successful and the religious.

Jesus is for losers … he died on a cross so losers like you and me could get right with God.

Are you right with God?

Jesus said to his disciples,

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:1-3)

Jesus reassured his disciples that he was coming back for them, to take them to be with him.

On other occasions he told them to keep watch out for his coming:

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:44)

Some 2000 years has passed since Jesus uttered these words to men who are now dead. Jesus didn’t return to take them to be with him. The disciples may have been ready, but their waiting appears to be in vain. Even during the lifetime of Jesus’ disciples it seems that people were beginning to wonder. The disciple Peter writes to believers:

Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ (2 Peter 3:3-4)

It’s not too hard to imagine people throughout history, even followers of Jesus, thinking, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” Anyway, why such a long wait? How does it further God’s purposes to extend the waiting period beyond the lifetime of the first disciples. A shorter time would have meant less years of suffering for many who have lived and died since.

The answer in the bible is also given by Peter:

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

2000 years seems along time to us but is nothing more than a weekend to God. It’s no longer than the time between God’s first promise to Abraham and the fulfilment of that promise in Jesus. More importantly, it’s the time of God’s patience, seeking repentance from people. The irony is that the long time at which people scoff is the very same time of God’s patience with those scoffers, seeking their repentance.

So, the important question is not‘why so long?’ but ‘have you taken the time to repent?’

Religion can be simply defined as a set of beliefs, rituals, actions people do in ‘worship’ of their ‘god’ in order to make themselves acceptable to their god. But for many observers, all religion does is cause division, starts wars and incites terrorism. It brainwashes people. It spoils fun. It turns a blind-eye to sexual abuse, and tricks people into giving money, while preachers build their private mansions.

Much of this is undoubtedly true. Many, in the name of religion, have done some if not all of the above.  They have hurt others, violated trust and exploited the vulnerable.  It’s inexcusable.

It may be cold comfort, but not all religious people or churches within Christianity represent Jesus truly. Those, who know the Bible well, know it condemns deceit, sexual abuse, murder and many atrocities committed ‘in its name’. Jesus is anti-sin filled religion.

In our reflections, we shouldn’t let the negative aspects of religion negate the many ‘positive things’ achieved by religious campaigners.  They have set up schools and hospitals. They give to the poor, and care for widows and orphans. This the Bible calls ‘true religion’ (James 1:27). William Wilberforce, a Christian, was at the forefront of the fight to end slavery.

The Bible’s claim is that this is God’s world, and that God has made Jesus Christ ruler or king of this world by raising him from the dead. So Jesus is anti-all other religions that do not worship and follow Him as God, exclusively.

Jesus called the Pharisees, the ‘religious police of his day, ‘hypocrites’, because they did acts that appeared righteous, but inside were full of wickedness. They had dead hearts. Jesus said out of our hearts comes ‘evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and theft’. Jesus is anti-dead ritual religion.

I could be wrong, but I suspect many of us are anti-religion because we don’t want the demands of institutional religion to interfere with what own heart wants to do.  Ironically, many of us who are ‘anti-religion’ have set ourselves up as ‘god’ of our own life, living by our own rules or creed. Jesus is anti-self-centred religion.

The reason why Jesus finds none of these religions acceptable is our rebellious, wicked, selfish sinful hearts.  For our actions to be acceptable to Jesus, we need heart surgery. Jesus’ claim is that he’s the only heart surgeon, who through his death and resurrection, can bring the forgiveness of sin that washes our hearts clean, frees us from living selfishly for ourselves and enables lives that love God and others as we should.

Being a Christian, Christian religion, is firstly about repenting and trusting in Jesus to forgive us and cleanse our hearts of sin.  Then it is about being more and more like Christ in what we do and say.  There is religion that Jesus is against.  The question is …“Is he against your religion?” Who is your god?  Who do you trust?  Are you trusting in Jesus?

Jesus from Nazareth died a criminal’s death on a rubbish tip in a place without importance on the eastern rim of the Roman Empire approximately 2,000 years ago. Most of his followers deserted him and left him for dead. If they were handing out prizes for the biggest loser in the 1st century, Jesus would have been one of the finalists. However, the Bible says that this was the whole point of what he was on about.

In his portrayal of the last day of Jesus’ life in the 2004 movie “The Passion of the Christ” Mel Gibson starts with an epigraph from the Bible, the book of Isaiah chapter 53 which was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Part of that chapter reads:

“…he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

In Isaiah 53 someone becomes a “loser” and takes a fall that others might benefit in some way. Christians believe that is talking about what Jesus was doing when he died – that through Jesus becoming a “loser” we can gain in some way and this was God’s intention all along.

What has resulted from this one loser’s life is staggering and undeniable. Today 1/3 of the population of the world calls Jesus their Lord in some way . The book that contains information about his life has been translated into more languages than any other book in history. As far as we know, Jesus never painted a painting, wrote a book or a poem or a play or even a song. And yet no other person in history has motivated as many works of art. Even today people are fascinated by this loser who died in all obscurity to become the most important person in world history.

In 1994, Florida resident Diana Duyser made herself an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich. She took one bite out of it, then stopped cold. “I saw a face looking up at me,” she said. “It was Virgin Mary staring back. I was in total shock.” Duyser said she surrounded the sandwich with cotton balls and stored it in a plastic container for a full decade. In that time, she said it never decayed — a detail she described as a “miracle.” And then, in 2004, Duyser put the holy sandwich up for sale on eBay. She made some cool cash from an Internet casino that paid a whopping $28,000 for the icon.

Closer to home, in 2003 a laundrette owner in Australia witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary – in the guise of a fence. One of the fence rails on Dolphin Point, just north of Coogee Beach, when viewed from a particular angle and distance, resembled a veiled woman. A local laundrette drew attention to it, and set up a gallery of photos to attract visiting “pilgrims”. When the illusion was reported in newspapers many (predominantly Roman Catholic) came daily to view what they interpreted as an apparition of Mary, the mother of Jesus. No particular supernatural powers were attributed to the shadow (dubbed “Our Lady of the Fence Post” by the media, a.k.a. “Rail Mary”) and interest waned within a few weeks. The section of fence that created the image was destroyed by vandals within days of it being publicised.

Such religious ‘miracles’ are awfully weak hoaxes. They can leave sceptics thinking the Christian faith is a blind faith. If such events are indicative of so-called miracles in the Bible, they say, then one need hardly take the Bible seriously. For example, the resurrection of a dead Jesus, can seem very hard to believe. But the Bible itself presents the resurrection as the proof Jesus is the divine Son of God, and the guarantee of the power of his death to rescue us. So in 1 Corinthians 15:14, the Bible agrees: “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

Yet the resurrection is not in the same category as grilled cheese and fence rails, as it’s dependent on a variety of eyewitness accounts which can easily be investigated in the many historical documents that have been preserved.

Lee Strobel is an Ameican example of an atheist who investigated the claims of the Bible. He had studied law and journalism and he was intrigued by his wife’s conversion to Christianity and the changes it brought. She invited him to church, where he heard the Christian message explained in an understandable way. He wrote, “While I didn’t believe it, I realized that if it were true, it would have big implications for my life. So I decided to use my journalism experience and legal expertise to investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity. For nearly two years, I investigated science, philosophy, and history. I read literature, quizzed experts, and studied archaeology. On November 8, 1981, alone in my room, I took a yellow legal pad and began summarizing the evidence I had encountered. In light of the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, I came to the conclusion that it would have required more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.” His most notable book since is The Case for Christ.

Have you done your own investigation? Don’t dismiss Jesus on the basis of strange stories about grilled cheese which no serious Christian accepts. Tackle the resurrection – because if you disprove that, then you disprove Christianity.

In the world of psychology the term ‘narcissist’ broadly refers to people who have ‘excessive love of self’. And the origin comes from the Greek mythological figure ‘Narcissus’ who looked at his own image in the water and … fell in love with it! At the core of extreme narcissism is an egotistical preoccupation with self, personal preferences, aspirations, needs, success, and how others perceive you.[1][1]

Is Jesus …a narcissist? In the pages of the New Testament Jesus makes statements such as: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34), and “You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:4), and “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). Isn’t he preoccupied with his own interests rather than the interests of others? Doesn’t this all smack of a malignant self-love?

Speaking of the God of the Old Testament, Richard Dawkins said “(he) is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”[2][2]

Ironically, Jesus is so identified with the God of the Old Testament that one passage in the New Testament dares to say:  “ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).

Here is the claim of the New Testament : it is precisely because Jesus is God that he is not narcissistic. God is the polar opposite. As God, Jesus gave and gave and gave to the point of death… even death on a barbaric shameful cross. To serve this Jesus is to serve the divine servant of all. And if he is God, it makes absolute sense to live for him rather than to live for anything or anyone else who functionally takes the place of God in our lives.
Are you willing to check out if Jesus is God? He’s worth living for if he is.

Elliot went to a motel room on Christmas Eve intent on killing himself. Even as a husband and father Elliot, had lived most of his life out of control. Drugs and alcohol had unravelled his life and his wife had finally put him out of their home. As he sat in the motel room, he saw a book lying on top of the TV. Looking down he saw it was a Bible and said: “Phe! Who needs that.” So he swept it onto the floor, but it fell open at his feet. Elliot bent down and picked up that Bible and read these words “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” The man who had no peace was introduced to the giver of peace. In what followed, Elliot’s life was transformed – his wife and family were restored to him because he found hope and peace in Jesus.

Amy’s life was in free fall because of drugs. Unable to hold down a job, Amy’s soul was in constant turmoil and her relationship with her family was at breaking point. Amy’s mum just wanted to fix her and make it all better but was powerless to help. Not knowing what to do the family committed Amy to a hospital. When her mum went to visit her Amy said, “Look what someone came and gave me”, and as she spoke she lifted up a Bible. “I don’t know what part of the Bible touched Amy’s heart,” said her mum, “but the girl who came out of that hospital was not the same girl who went in. She was fresh and new, and her mind was clear.”

As a 17 years old student of Delhi University, in a well-to-do family with a father in a good government position, Ravi seemed to have everything. Everything, except for one thing … he had no reason in his heart to want to live. So one morning, when his family was out, he mixed a chemical cocktail and drank it in the seclusion of his bathroom. What followed was a living hell as he lost control of his body. A family servant heard his anguish and got him rushed to the hospital. While in the hospital the doctor said to him, “I have made you well, but I cannot make you want to live.” As Ravi Zacharias tells his story, he follows the doctor’s words with: “But he did.” Lifting up a Bible, Ravi points to the fact that he is alive because of Jesus Christ.

People look for reasons to live because of relationships; but they come and go. People look for reasons to live in work and success; but it never quite reaches expectation. People look for reasons to live in the wealth that they have; but they never seem to have enough.

People want a reason to live, but it is not found in us, our families or in our accomplishments. Our reason to live is found in one man… Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection has given all who seek him the greatest reason to live – forgiveness and peace with God, a hope that outshines this world into the world to come. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

If you are looking for true life, hope and peace like Elliot, Amy and Ravi… then look no further than Jesus Christ. Pick up a Bible, go visit a church and talk with the pastor, and get to know Jesus Christ.

There are so many religions in our world. And they look very similar. They have religious looking buildings, similar moral teachings, and meditation or prayers to a divinity, …just for starters! It is perfectly understandable to consider them as equally valid, or just different ways of looking at the same principles.

To illustrates this, there is a classic tale of several blind monks who feel a different part of an elephant. One of them gropes the tail and says it is long and wiry. Another feels the body and says it is large and flat. Yet another handles the tusks and says it is tough and pointy. And then they all argue about what the elephant is like because they all have part of the truth. And in this sense they are all right with their part (literally) of the truth! But none of them can see the whole elephant. In other words, none of them posseses the whole truth.

Is it not the same with religion? All religions only understand part of the truth but not the whole truth. If they did understand the whole truth, they wouldn’t need to argue.

But historically, a closer inspection reveals that the various religions involve different people in different times asking different questions about different things. For example, Buddhism was founded in reaction to Hinduism. And the Koran says that Jesus never died. Where as the bible says that Jesus did die. On this historical claim alone, both religions cannot be right. Either Jesus did die, or he didn’t!

So is following Jesus just one among many (equally valid) religons? Jesus didn’t think so. He himself said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He claims to be the exclusive way to God his Father. Indeed elsewhere he effectively calims to be equal to his Father (eg John 5:17-18). Is Jesus being arrogant in his exclusive claims? If he is, then he is not alone.

Remember the tale of the blind monks? We can only know that they possessed part of the truth if we alone could see the whole elephant and so possess the whole truth! So for us to claim that all religions possess only part of the truth, is to suggest that we alone can see the whole truth in a way that no other religious believer can. And this is an equally exclusive claim to that of Jesus.

The question then is whose exclusive claim is right? Jesus’ or ours?

The best way to find out is to at least read his claims in the New Testament with credible historical investigation. Are you willing?