Like Pieces of a Puzzle

First, thank you for your expressed gratitude for my navigating choppy waters related to my health. Thank you also for your prayers. It makes a difference.

Second, insanely spicey food is one of my life's little joys. I'm not convinced the onset of my symptoms is correlated with spicey foods. Fatty foods is a more likely candidate.

Third, you're a crafty one, Mr. Deep.Thought ... you think you can beguile me into #'s 5 and 6 so easily? Well ... perhaps. :-)

But not this post ... I need to think about things a bit more.

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But I found this post of yours very interesting:

Thinking about it, one cannot believe in Jesus unless one believes in "sin" can one? Without "sin" there is no purpose for a Messiah. I just realized that.

Yes! If one never comes to the realization of their sinfulness, then the idea of needing atonement through the sacrifice of another will be just plain silly. Or worse, barbarian. Hence my #4 cornerstone on the sinfulness of man.

As I mentioned before, I'm really approaching this as a logical framework. You just touched on one of the linkages, or puzzle pieces. If man is not sinful -- or, more specifically, if I am not sinful -- then it is very unlikely I'll ever progress to the point of feeling a need for a saviour.

This also explains my cornerstone #3 -- the nature of God. One's "sinfulness" is really a matter of comparitive degree, isn't it? If I compare my degree of sinfulness to a convicted serial murderer, I come away feeling pretty good about myself. But when I compare myself against an utterly perfect -- an incomprehensibly glorious and perfect -- God, then by comparison I am awful wretch. But if I think of God as not much better than me, perhaps more powerful, but not immune to the same mistakes and missteps, then there's little chance I'll consider myself sinful, and therefore little chance I'll feel a need for salvation.

But how can I know that God is this "utterly perfect" God? Cornerstone #2 -- God's revelation in Scripture. The Bible makes it perfectly and undeniably clear that God is "Holy," or set apart from us.

Linkages -- one after another. Take one away and the house of cards falls down. You discovered one critical card in the construction -- the idea of sin and the relationship of that to the need for a Messiah.