In the Spotlight

Jesus said that eternal life is to know him and believe in Him. He also said, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16) It is that simple. All we need to do to have eternal life is to believe in Jesus. It is God’s gift for us which we can either accept, by saying yes to Jesus, or reject, by saying no to Jesus. The choice is always ours.

Yes Jesus is like the generous and forgiving Father in the 'prodigal son' story. No matter what bad things we do if we realise that we have sinned or done wrong and we ask forgiveness, Jesus will forgive us. He loves us so much that nothing can change His love for us, and He loves us too much to hold our sins against us.

For us Christians the meaning of life is to know God and respond to His love, by loving Him will our heart, soul, mind and body. Life is also about knowing who we are in the eyes of God… that we are loved by God and precious to him. It is not about what we have or have not. It is not about being popular or famous … our true fulfilment comes only from God. In the Gospel of John, chapter 10: verse 10, Jesus said He came to give us life to the full!

Satan hates us because he is jealous of the unfailing love God has for us. Because of this he always tries to get at us so we will turn away from God’s love. Though he hates so much and does his best to separate us from God’s love, he can never succeed if we don’t give him the permission. Jesus has won the victory over Satan for us, all we have to do is to stay close to Jesus and do His will for our life.

To be honest, I don’t know! Crowded?! All I can say is that God created in the beginning to live, not die, so if we had not sinned I believe life would be long, happy and fun! But as the world is, with our sin and mistakes taking their toll, if people were not to die I think there would be more suffering, and pain for people.

No, Jesus never had sex. It is very clear in the bible that Jesus did not marry, and His teaching on marriage and sex is also clear (have a look at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5: verses 27-28), so we can be confident that He didn’t have sex.

My really simple explanation is that we know from the Bible that Mary conceived Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is God, then that makes Jesus the Son of God and son of Mary.

No exact age has been stated in the Bible, but it does say that Jesus chose to come and die for us. That means that even before He was born He knew He was going to die for our sins, because He is God and so knows everything before it happens. While he was on earth, in his humanity, we can’t be sure when he became really conscious of this, but He was very definite about it in the weeks, possibly months just before it happened.

Jesus said if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could tell the mountains to move themselves into the sea, so having faith when we pray is always helpful. God always answers our prayers, however we may not receive the answer we're looking for. Just as you wouldn't give a sharp knife to a young child- in case they hurt themselves - God knows what is best for us and so sometimes his answer is "no", or "not right now". Of course, that doesn't mean we should necessarily give up - sometimes, God wants us to persevere with our prayer so that we truly rely on him, and sometimes it's about learning to pray for what God wants rather than what we want.

A good habit to get into is to take some time before you go to bed, to look back over your day, and see if there’s anything you need to ask forgiveness for. There’s also an opportunity at the beginning of Mass to ‘call to mind our sins’, and to ask God to forgive us. If you need to go confession though, and for some reason you can’t make the Saturday slot, most priests are happy to hear confessions at other times if you call and make an appointment with them. Top tip: Don’t miss out on the grace that comes from the sacrament, find a way to get there!

God has given us what’s called free will, which means we choose our behaviour, and he never forces us to do anything. Sometimes God might want us to do particular things though, so when we pray it’s good to take time to listen to him. You might want to ask what God if there’s something special he wants you to do, it might be telling people about Jesus, or raising money for charities, or just smiling at people! One of the best things about life is discovering what God has in store for us. But the choice is always yours.

God will never ever stop loving you. God is so loving that it is true to say that God IS Love. Some people imagine God is going to punish crush them if they do something wrong. This isn't a good image of who God is. One of the best images is that of a loving and forgiving Father. God does love you and always will.