Following Christ

In reading and studying the New Testament I came across this scripture in John 20:31 which says, "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." This scripture really stood out to me when I read it and when we talked about it in my New Testament class. I had never really paid that much attention to it before. My thoughts, while I'm sure were not consciously acknowledged, probably went something like this: yep, believe in Christ--that's good. Now that I have studied His life in more depth than I have before this verse takes on a whole new meaning. We need to not only have faith in Him, we need to hearken to His teachings--hearken meaning hear and follow. It's not enought to just believe in Him because when we truly believe, we will understand that though him we can have eternal life and in order to gain that eternal life we need to live His teachings now. And we need to have hope that when we do mess up, we can be forgiven through His everlasting atonement. He gave his life for every person in the world--on a personal level that we can't really understand. He loves each of us and wants us to follow Him and believe in Him and His atonement. He knows each of us better than we know ourselves. He knows that we mess up in our lives--he knew that when he suffered and died for us. His love and atonement are unconditional when we truly follow Him. In class we talked about how Jesus (at the Last Supper) told each of his disciples what they would do to betray Him. They didn't believe Him, but all along He knew them better than they knew themselves. His knowing us better than we know ourselves--knowing what we will do before we do it--gives us hope. Hope that even though we do bad things He is still willing to die for us because He loves us. All we have to do is love Him enough to follow His teachings and repent of our sins and He will welcome us openly into His kingdom. He said in John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." There is room in this kingdom for everyone. There is not limited space which would cause anyone to be turned away. As long as we follow Him he will prepare a place for us.