What is Christianity? Who is God?

This short film is to show you exactly what Christianity is all about – and to tell you about who God is and why it might be a good idea to consider God as real.

You know… some people believe – and this is only a belief – a belief with no proof at all – but the belief is, that billions of years ago, the Earth suddenly appeared after a humongous explosion – out of absolutely … nothing. This explosion – according to these believers should – have made the Earth, the plants, the animals and all mankind.

The “big bang” explosion somehow even made oxygen to breathe, iron, gasses, water, and the whole photosynthesis (if you’ve ever heard about that thing?) – somehow it even made the stars and the whole eternal universe … in one big explosion – wow, what a supernatural blast that must have been.

These … you could say, scientific believers, also believe that all things in nature, all kinds of animals and the whole of mankind evolved from being one tiny little cell, into what we are and can see all around us today – but this belief also means that everything is one big coincidence with no connection what so ever, no meaning, and absolutely no purpose.

According to this belief, it is only one big blast of particles coming from … obviously nowhere?? – that created a perfect system containing light, darkness, warmth, coldness, rain, snow, seasons and so on – even emotions like love, anger, hate et cetera, is one big coincidence and years of adapting. …all is just one big coincidence!!

But why am I telling you all these things…? Because this belief is what many are taught in schools all over the world. And this is so different from Christianity.

You see… Christians are… you could say… naive people, who don’t believe that either the Earth nor you are a coincidence. Christian people believe that everything has a mastermind behind it – a creator – a creator who planned everything down to the smallest detail – and that mastermind is God.

And this is what happened:
God created the world, the water, the plants, the whole universe, and of course, all living creatures. He didn’t create them to evolve, but he created them perfect as they are – one by one.

It was SO beautiful – and everything was actually perfect… Then… right there on Earth, God decided, that He could use some company. So He created the first Human, called Adam. Adam was actually created in God’s own image, and he was created to have fellowship with God and to rule over all animals. God also created Eve from Adam, so they could be together and enjoy each other – and to enjoy “Paradise on Earth” – or the Garden of Eden, as it was called. There was no Death… so they were actually meant to live eternally together with God … and just enjoy.

Now, God could have made the two Humans into His slaves or He could have programmed their minds to only obey God in everything and to worship Him all day long… but God loved them so much that He decided to give them their own free will – and He didn’t want to force them to do anything.

God just wanted a trusting relationship with His new Human creations. That’s also why God allowed Adam and Eve to do EVERYTHING they desired in the garden. No rules – except for only one thing: They were not allowed to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. And if they did, God had made a law with only one single rule – and since God is a loving God, He told Adam and Eve about this rule before they even thought about the Tree of Knowledge. This rule was: Eat of the tree, and you will be sent out of the Garden of Eden, be separated from God, and become mortal. God set up this single rule or law to protect them, because God knew there would be really servere consequences for them, to eat the fruit. So God gave humans their own free will to choose Him, who is the life, freedom and love – but the choice should be by free will.

Before all this, God also created a lot of spiritual “creatures”, known as angels. One of these angels, Lucifer, was one of the highest and most beautiful angels. This particular angel was even the worship leader in the spiritual heaven. But one day Lucifer got mad at God because he wanted to be equal to God. But of course, God wouldn’t’ allow Lucifer that position. Result: Lucifer got angry with God, and God kicked him out of heaven – away for God’s presence. Among Lucifer’s “falling”, a lot of other angles followed Lucifer. To give Lucifer a place to rule instead of being a worship leader, God gave him the earth has his.

Now Lucifer … or better known as Satan … now had one big mission: He wanted people to rebel against God and therefore to commit sin (things that in the eyes of God are wrong and unclean to do)

Satan knew that God was and is Holy and only good and righteous – so God won’t come near to sin and evil things. Sin separates us from God – and that’s also why Satan showed himself as a snake to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to persuade and to tempt them to eat a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge – and sadly Satan succeeded in his mission. Eve ate the fruit, and she tempted Adam to do the same… In a split second, sin came into the world of man – and suddenly Adam and Eve saw they were naked.

And just like when you drive too fast in your car – you already know what can happen before doing it: A ticket – or maybe you’ll even lose your drivers license… and it’s not unfair – it’s justice. And the law is set up to protect you or other people from a big accident.

It was the exact same scenario for Adam and Eve. God had to enforce the verdict, that was already decided before Adam and Eve broke the law:
God had to be separated from them, so He kicked them out from the garden. I could imagine Adam and Eve thought it was unfair – but it was justice – and they knew all about the law even before eating the fruit. But they wouldn’t let God protect them and the temptation was too big.

So now as a result of this tragedy, God and man were separated. No fellowship anymore – the purpose of creating man was pretty much gone… You can say that God was in one bubble – and man in another bubble – and man couldn’t contact God in any way at all.

Now, Adam and Eve had lots of children – really many children. And their children had children with each other – which God allowed at that point to multiply people.

So many things happen while we read The Old Testament – like Abraham, Noah, Moses, Daniel, David and so on – but in general, people are really forgetting God and since Satan rules the earth, sickness and sin like hate, jealousy, adultery, abuse, murder and so on, takes over. People still have their own free will, but since they don’t choose to live close to God, Satan can make his way in and affect people’s thoughts and mindset.

During the approximately 4000 years in The Old Testament, God decides to only talk directly to very few people. And through a guy called Moses, God chooses a specific people to be His people. They were and still are called the Israelites. Why? Because God really still desired a fellowship with humans again, just as he wanted from the beginning, when He created the world.

Through Moses God gave 10 commandments to the people, that they had to follow as a basic law. Maybe you have heard some of the most common commandments like :
– You must not have any other god but me.
– You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
– You must not murder.
– You must not commit adultery.
– You must not steal.

Actually, God gave the Israelites 613 commandments or laws to follow in order to be “holy” and “clean”. And for every commandment they broke, that had to repent and offer a certain animal or some food to God in order to receive forgiveness… And if they ignored it – they would die, because God is Holy and He won’t accept any kind of sin.

Now 613 basic laws were a pretty large number – and it didn’t go too well keeping all of them. Even though God really showed amazing miracles, people were impatient and some of them even started to worship other gods.

The years went by, and God saw that the fellowship He created us to have with Him, still wasn’t as planned and people – or the Jews – couldn’t live up to all the laws and offerings. So God did the wildest thing you could ever imagine …. He decided to sacrifice His only son, Jesus, for our sake. So this is what happened:

God picked out a young lady, who was pure in His eyes. Her name was Mary. Then God sent the angel, Gabriel, to Mary, to tell her, that God wanted her to be pregnant and carry a child – not a regular child, but the true and only Son of God with no biological father, but with God as his true father.

Jesus grew up as a regular kid together with Mary and his …you can say “bonus dad”, Joseph. Jesus became an ordinary carpenter – but at the age of 30, Jesus was baptized – all under water …and God’s spirit – The Holy Spirit – came upon Jesus …down from the sky, shaped like a dove. And from that day, Jesus started to tell about forgiveness, to love one another, to wholeheartedly repent from sin – not only on the outside, to love your enemies and to believe and trust in Jesus.

Jesus told many fantastic things, and to prove that He really was the true Son of God, The Messiah, He performed so many miracles: He healed everyone who came to Him … He walked on water … He turned water into the finest wine … He even raised dead people from their tomb … and He cast out tons of demons.
Jesus loved and healed those who didn’t deserve to be loved or healed and He told them to repent from sin. He came to give Humans a freedom that had never been seen – either at that time or today.

Jesus even taught his disciples to do the same as He did – and He gave them the authority to heal the sick and cast out demons. First He sent out 12 of His closest disciples to do as He did and to tell everyone about Jesus – and later on, He actually sent around 70 disciples out to do the same… Jesus told all people to follow Him and to do like He did. The word “Christian”, actually means “Follower of Christ”.

But why all that…? And for what reason? You see, Jesus said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (God) except through me”.

So God planned, that His son, Jesus, would have to suffer and die on a cross in great pain – and on that cross, He had to carry the whole word’s sickness, shame and guilt – and not least – all sins, that separated people from God.

Jesus was so sinful on the cross carrying it all for us, that God had to turn his back on Jesus – to abandon him, as He had NEVER abandoned anyone before or since.

So right there on the cross, Jesus was that one big sacrifice from God, who should set us free from the 613 commandments and the offerings of food and animals…. and the “verdict” Adam and Eve and all their descendants were under. So Jesus was God’s offering to us.

On the 3rd day after Jesus had died, The Holy Ghost raised Jesus from the dead into life in flesh and bones. Jesus conquered death – and He promised, that everyone who believes and acts on His words, will never perish in eternal flames from Hell after we die, but we will get an eternal life in heaven TOGETHER with Jesus and with God.

After the resurrection, Jesus went around on earth for 40 days and preached to a few people. Then he went away to the His father, God, in Heaven.

And after another 10 days, Jesus sent down The Holy Spirit as a substitute for Him to His nearest disciples – and all of them were baptized or soaked with The Holy Spirit, who lead them, guided them, gave them words to say, prophesy, heal the sick, cast out demons and gave them the spiritual language called speaking in tongues.

Jesus’ last orders to His disciples were, that He wanted them to continue what they did while Jesus was still on earth, and He even wanted them to continue making new disciples of Jesus – and also they should go out and tell about Jesus, heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, prophesy and so on… and it is still the exact same thing we see today. … Yes, all the miracles are still going on everywhere Christians dare to follow Jesus and the Bible and don’t turn it into religion, laws, condemnation, and fear.

So back to Jesus’ own words, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (God) except through me”.
It means that Jesus is the way, that leads you to God. He is the truth – and he is the way to eternal life in paradise for those who choose to follow Jesus.

Please note that Jesus said the strange phrase “except through me”. It means that if we believe in Jesus, He will stand in front of us – so when God looks at us, He looks at us through Jesus – so Jesus becomes a kind of filter, that removes all unclean sin – and we can look back to God and have a relationship with our heavenly Father again. So if we choose Jesus today and repent from our old life in sin, we are Holy to God and not sinners anymore.

Did you know that God wants to save every single one of us? Not because we deserve it at all – because all of us have probably done something wrong in our life that separates us from God – it could be lying, stealing, adultery, drunkenness, bitterness and so on.

Jesus also really wants to be your friend, talk to you and set you free from all bondage in your life.

So how do you accept Jesus in your life today? How do you invite Him into your life and become what you call a “born-again-Christian”…? It’s actually pretty simple… It only takes a few things:

First of all… Believe in Jesus – that Jesus is the only Son of God, that He died for you and rose again in flesh and bone – believe in the whole Bible.

The second thing is to decide to surrender your whole life to Jesus and ask him to come and change you. Not to add Jesus to your life as a sport, but to make Jesus the center of your life in everything.

The 3rd thing as a good start of your new life is to forgive people, you are bitter at or angry with – and then forgive yourself. Repent to a new life where you try to live as holy as you can and remember forbearance towards other people.

The order in which to do the following is not important but get baptized as Jesus got baptized – fully under water burying your old life with sin, and not to follow any doctrines but the Bible.

Finally … Get baptized with Holy Spirit and receive the speaking in tongues – ask a born-again-Christian to pray for you.

Now you are ready to start your new life living with Jesus as a friend. And do that by talking to Him, listening to Him, reading the Bible, searching education, singing worship songs, going out and sharing the Gospel with others, healing people in Jesus’ name and casting out demons.

God has so much for you… the only question is… do you want to believe it…? And do you want to receive it…? Jesus never comes into your life, if you don’t ask Him to come – but Satan will try and push you every day. Whose side are you on? What is your choice?

Andreas Slot-Henriksen
January 2019