contact | find us | sitemap Many people today are beginning to question what the purpose of life is. Why are we here? Whether there is a God? What happens after we die? And it doesn't seem that there are very many places to go for answers, certainly answers that make sense. Maybe up until now you haven't even considered that Christianity is a viable option. It is quite possible that, like many, you have been put off by the church and seen it as irrelevant and rather dull, or otherwise by some experience in the past has coloured your attitude to Christian faith. "Why Jesus?" booklet, available free at Riverside get a copy... May I suggest that you look at the very heart of the matter and look at Jesus. After all, there would be no Christianity if it were not for Jesus Christ. It is good for us to look back and examine him as a person and ask questions: "who was he?" and "why did he come?" We have just celebrated the millenium - 2000 years since the birth of Christ - and it is a remarkable fact that we base our dating system around him. The place to start is the New Testament, and in the gospels inparticular, because here we have eyewitness accounts focusing in on the life of Jesus and in particular the last three years of his life. Try reading one of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John), because here we read that Jesus: claimed to be God: John 10: v.34-38, Philippians 2: v.5-8 performed remarkable miracles like changing water into wine and healing the lame and the blind. taught with remarkable authority that cut to the heart of every issue he dealt with. 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis Then he is nailed to a cross, but a few later his disciples claim that he had risen from the dead - and the evidence is strong. Not only this, but for nearly 2000 years, millions of people have said that Jesus has impacted their lives for good. That means that we have to investigate this man further. Anyone who claims to be God and does these things requires that we examine him and come to a conclusion about him. He demands a response from us. C.S. Lewis wrote, "we are faced with a frightening alternative. The man we are talking about was (and is) just what he said, or else a lunatic or something worse. Now it seems to be obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God." When we are prepared to admit the possibility that Jesus was God and that somehow his death on the cross was important for us, and that by rising from the dead he demonstrated the validity of his claims, as well as showing that he is alive today, then this should excite us because it means that there is a source of authority. There is someone we can go to who has the answers to the questions we are asking. We want to know about God and life after death and why we are here. It could be well then that Jesus has the answers. © Copyright 2007 Riverside Church. Company Limited by Guarantee No. 4479264 and Registered Charity No. 1099487. Member of the Evangelical Alliance.