This is another new book calle: It's not about me!

Introduction

In an effort to enable the people that He created to spend eternity with Him God wrote everything down in the Bible. It has survived for years and is used by people everywhere. The events are true and the events were prophesied or told about years before they occurred.

You can go back through history and see that they all occurred. But to imagine that the creator of this world actually told people what was going to happen in the far distant future and they believed Him is testimony to His existence and He revealed His plan in the Bible as well.

Unbelievable as it is to us He loves us.

But the Bible is about much more than just salvation.

It is meant to show people His plan that is much more than about you, what you can become, what you know or what you can do it’s about how to get in line to share eternity with Him.

People are always evaluating themselves and others but only one evaluator matters and that’s God.

People are always comparing themselves to standards but there is only one standard that matters and that is Jesus. And Jesus will give us His standard so we can go to Heaven! We don’t have to earn it, He gives it to us!

Our lives here on Earth are to please God. That’s it.



In turn He has offered to give us a wonderful eternity if we follow His plan and it’s all in the Bible.

But our culture encourages us to live our lives always saying me, me, me instead of God, God, God and the purpose of this book is to change that.

Your future involves eternity and your eternity can be secured through God.

One thing that people like to say is that Heaven is there for you IF you don’t sin but we’re humans so WE DO SIN! The Bible is very clear about that but it also says something else too. When we come to Christ it says that we are ‘dead to sin’. So I’ll ask you: What does dead mean? Well if something is dead then it is no more and nothing can affect it.


So if you are with God you are dead to sin. So sin cannot affect you and with regards to our previous sins we are forgiven. It’s not that we didn’t do them because we did, but we have been forgiven for them.

So Heaven is there for us.
















Table of Contents

Chapter # Name Page
1 Why not me, me, me? 1
2 Why we need salvation 4
3 When God came to Earth 7
4 The Purpose 11
5 The Ministry of Jesus 16
6 The Death of Jesus 19
7 What People did then 28
8 What we Should do now 31












Chapter 1
Why not me, me, me?

Did you create the world? NO. Did you create yourself? NO. Did you create anything? NO. So who created everything? God. And you are living in the World that He created for you so everything isn’t just about you it’s about God.

This world tells you that life is all about you and what you can do but can you do things like God? NO.

You are also just one person in this world and there are billions of others so what you can accomplish is actually miniscule.

But God’s son Jesus came here with a purpose: to save others and He accomplished that while making things better in the meantime.
1
His purpose was complete and it was approved by His Father. But He had to die to do it and He did! You don’t have to die to accomplish things. You just work hard to accomplish things for your boss and you get paid money but He did it for us so YOU are the paycheck.

You have already cost God’s son His life and you are the paycheck that has already been given so why would everything now be just about you?

Everything in this world was created to please God. Jesus coming from Heaven was prophesied about in the Old Testament and it pleased God.

So are you working for God or your boss? My guess is that you’re working for 1-your boss and 2-money but there is much more for you than that.
2
Why would you limit yourself just to things for this life when there’s so much more available when you consider eternity?

Eternity (forever) is much longer than this life. If you are something special in this life but spend eternity in Hell you’re your accomplishments and your boss wont matter and you wont be happy but if you live for God and spend eternity in Heaven then you will be happy.

So the question of why not me, me, me has a much different view now doesn’t it?








3
Chapter 2
Why we need salvation

I‘m sure that you think that you’ve been good enough but the Bible (God’s word) says that we’ve all sinned:
Rom 3:23-24
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God , 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
NIV
And without faith in Jesus we’re all lost:
John 3:17-18
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
NIV
4
So we’re condemned already (going to Hell). Not condemned if we don’t do something, we’re already condemned from the start. But if we do believe in Jesus then we’re not condemned because we believe in Jesus (God’s one and only son) and we have salvation.

In addition to salvation, many other things happen:

God adopts us into His family.

Our future for eternity is with him.

The Holy Spirit lives in us.

We have gotten the ultimate gift and so we’re happy forever.
Isn’t that better than a paycheck?
5
No boss or company can ever give you that much and it’s not a paycheck that you have to work for because it’s a free gift!

Salvation isn’t hard to get it’s a gift.

















6
Chapter 3
When God came to Earth

God has always had a plan for the Earth that He created but His timing is not ours. When something does not work as we would like for it to we figure out why and do things differently. Not so with God.

He created the Earth and we assume that things weren’t going well so He came in the form of Jesus. Huge assumption.

No one knows God but it is pretty safe after having read the Bible to assume that He does nothing by chance. He gave people many opportunities to do things but when the time was right He sent His son, Jesus to the Earth.


7
Now just being able to wait until the time was right was something that only God could do. Another one way being able to successfully plan things so thoroughly that He would knew, not guessed that the time was right.

There are many forms that He could have come in but He chose to come as a baby. He chose an unmarried virgin girl to impregnate, grow and be born as a baby. Not exactly the form that you or I would have chosen but He knew the whole story and we didn’t.

He even chose relatives also as He prepared to live and grow among us.

And He had chosen to tell people finite details about Himself hundreds of years before He was born. And all of those details are in the Bible and we can read them.
8
He was born in an animals barn and was placed in an animals feeding container called a manger. And when He was born the angels told several shepherds of His birth, where He was and how to find Him.

He also told 3 kings in far away counties far enough in advance so they would have the time to travel a long distance to go and see Him.

In addition to all of that He had several stars gather up in the sky above where He was born. He had come with a purpose. To give His life as the Father’s ransom for mankind (the people that He had created).

After He had died and been raised and left the Earth for Heaven but He continued to help:


9
Acts 4:13

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
NIV

The power of God was greater than any human it always has been, it is now and it always will be.

This eliminates the wonder of whether or not He can help you.







10
Chapter 4
The Purpose

He could have come any way but He wanted to live among us so He came as a baby. And He came to forgive sins:

Matt 1:18
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

Due to the change in times Mary was probably a teenager! And at first Joseph was very upset! A young wife who had gone away and came home very pregnant. Yes he was upset:



11
Matt 1:20-23
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"-which means, "God with us."
NIV

He live His entire life teaching God’s word, feeding people, healing people, raising people from the dead and showing people that there really was another way.

12
But that threatened people’s accomplishments because it said “it’s not about YOU” and the people of this world did not like it one bit!

Not surprisingly it sounds very much like today.

The world teaches you that everything is about you but Jesus (God) came and taught you that everything is about God and proved His story by doing things that other people couldn’t do, so who are you going to believe?

As scripture says He came once and for all so He’s not coming again to convince you but to judge you. Are you ready for that?



13
And when He left this Earth and went to Heaven the Father rewarded Him:

Acts 5:31
31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins.
NIV

But even though He left miraculously people were still staring in amazement:
Acts 1:9-11

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.





14
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven , will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven ."
NIV

He will be back and He won’t be looking at what you can or can’t do or who or where you are, He’ll be looking at if you have served God. Are you ready for that?








15
Chapter 5
The ministry of Jesus

Jesus wasted no time. His entire life was spent teaching, healing, feeding, telling in short, serving God.

He came as one of us to prove to us that there IS a way to survive. He continually demonstrated that the things that we encounter, no matter how big they seem to us are small potatoes to God like food, disabilities, money, illness, life, death even location.

And He took real human beings to do it but the religious leaders of that time didn’t like it. Why? Because the focus of His ministry was on God not on them. They saw Jesus as competition. And although there was no aristocracy involved at all people’s opinions meant a lot to them.
16
He chose 12 apostles, normal every day men to teach them His way and teach everyone that anyone could do this and so that the apostles could carry on when He left to go back to Heaven.

His ministry was very difficult because of the world or to put it bluntly, the way of people. But because He was there for people He stuck it out.

In the Old Testament the ministry from God was done but it was done from Heaven but in the New Testament the ministry came to Earth and that was headed up by Jesus. Same story just a different location and really that’s all we needed. Someone who was one of us, living like us but showing us a better way. And that’s what we got.



17
During His Earthy ministry Jesus took normal ordinary men and made them apostles so that His work could be continued after He went back to Heaven and they did it:

Acts 4:13

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
NIV

So His ministry on Earth was successful then and it is now! Yes, God is in Heaven but He’s still active here now.




18
Chapter 6
The death of Jesus

It is important to note that this was known about, spoken about and prophesied about. I could easily go into all the horrible details that surrounded this but the fact is that He died for us.

After His death the Church didn’t stop NO it carried on. Remember, He came to die for everyone. This was planned, expected and of great benefit to us. Here are just two examples of how the Church moved on:

Women prepared Him or burial.






19
Luke 23:55-56

55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
NIV

The women continued and found that He had risen. People were going somewhere and they saw Him:

Luke 24:1 - John 1:1
24:1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
20
4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'" 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

21
12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

22
19 "What things?" he asked.
"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."
25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"
23
27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"
33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon."
24
35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.

25
44 He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.
26
52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
NIV

See? He continued the Church then and He does it today.

This is what He came to do! To conquer the world and save us. So yes His death IS sad but what He did for us is too good to be true!

And the concept of death being good is totally new to us. No pain, no sorrow only an unimaginable blessing. Talk about Heaven in the real world!




27
Chapter 7
What people did then

Acts 4:27-30

27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
NIV


Acts 5:33-40
28
33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed them: "Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.
29
39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."


NIV

Then people stayed with Jesus teaching as if He was still there.













30
Chapter 8
What we should do now

Jesus has conquered the world and given us a wonderful gift. In addition the Father has adopted us into His family and made us heirs with Christ. In addition even that the Holy Spirit will come and live in us!

When we come to Christ we are new creations and we are dead to sin. So even though we’re human and can still sin, sin has literally no effect on us. It’s still bad and we shouldn’t do it but it’s power over us is gone!

Now is when your part comes in. You have to ‘deny yourself’. God has given you everything and He must be the most important thing to you.

31
He has already created the world, conquered the world, created you and made a way to save you for all time so it shouldn’t be too hard to make Him #1.

This is where the you, you, you thing comes into play. If everything is always about you then there’s no room for God. You’ve got to change your whole way of thinking and make Him be #1 in your life. God has been very patient, gone through a lot, explained a lot and given you a lot but He won’t do this forever.

This is your choice alone and it is 100% from you and salvation is waiting on you.