Burns Catechism v4

 in a tragedy of formatting, this post lost all of its numbering and indentation.  I will fix it in the near future, but until then, you can see the gist of it.

Purpose

1. Who made you? God
2. What did He make you for? To make Him happy
3. What do we call God’s happiness?His Glory
4. Is there anyone who always made God happy? Only Jesus
5. What are people called who make God happy? God-lovers
6. What things do God-lovers do? They love and obey God
7. What do we call God-lovers? Christians
8. What are people called who do not make God happy? Self-lovers
9. What things do self-lovers do? They do things that make themselves happy
10. What are these things called? Sin
11. Who has sinned? Everyone and I
12. Why does a person sin? Because they love themselves more than God
13. How can self-lovers make God happy? They cannot make God happy until they are forgiven
14. How can self-lovers be forgiven? They ask: God, please forgive me and change my heart into a God-lover, because I know that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive sins 
15. When does God forgive a person? As soon as they ask Him
16. When God forgives a self-lover, they become a what? A God-lover

Bible and God

1. How does God talk to us? The Bible
2. How do you talk to God? I pray
3. Who is the only person who can save you? Jesus
4. Is Jesus God or a man? He is both God and man
5. What did Jesus have to do to forgive us? He lived, died and came back to life
6. What did He do when He lived? He obeyed God perfectly
7. What can you do to take away your sins? Nothing
8. Who can take away your sin? God
9. How much of your sin will God take away? All of it

Heaven and Hell

1. What is the place where God-lovers spend forever with God? Heaven
2. What is the best part about heaven? Being with God is the best part
3. What else is wonderful about heaven? We live in happiness forever, with nothing sad at all
4. What is the place where self-lovers spend forever away from God? Hell
5. Who else will be in Hell? All other self-lovers and the Devil
6. Why will God punish self-lovers? Because they love themselves more than God
7. What do people have to ask God to have Him forgive them? God, please forgive me and change my heart into a God-lover, because I know that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive sins

Temptation

1. Do God-lovers ever have to sin? No
2. What is it called when we want to sin? Temptation
3. How long will we have temptation? All our lives
4. What promise does God make to God-lovers about temptation? We can get away from it, if we want
5. How do temptations work? They try to make us think like self-lovers?
6. How do we not listen to these temptations? Right then, we talk to Jesus and love Him
7. Was Jesus ever tempted? Yes
8. Did Jesus ever follow the temptation and sin? Never
9. How did Jesus get away from temptation? Right then, He talked to God and loved Him

Trinity

1. How many gods are there? There is only one God
2. Is there only one person in God? No, there are three persons
3. What are the names of these three Persons? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
4. Which one is the strongest? They are all equal
5. Does this mean that there are 3 gods? No, there is just one
6. What do we call the three persons together? The Trinity

God

1. Where is God? He is everywhere
2. How long has God lived? He has always lived
3. How strong is God? He can do anything He wants
4. How good is God? There is no sin in Him
5. What does God know? He knows everything
6. What does God say about His goodness? He is Holy
7. How kind is God? So kind, that He died for us

The Cross

1. If we are punished for our self-love, where will that happen? After we die, in Hell
2. If Jesus is punished for our self-love, where will that happen? It already happened on the Cross
3. If Jesus died on the cross, is He still dead? No, he came back to life
4. How long was He dead? 3 days
5. What did the Cross look like? It was a tall piece of wood  that looked like a “t”
6. What happened on the Cross? It is where Jesus died to rescue us from our self-love
7. Why did Jesus die on the Cross To take the punishment for our self-love
8. Who needs the Cross? Everyone and I
9. If Jesus did not die on the Cross, what would happen to us? We would never know God and would be punished in Hell
10. Is God just or merciful? He is both just and merciful
11. What do we mean when we say “God is Merciful”? He does not give us the punishment we deserve
12. Why did God give us mercy? Because He is kind and compassionate
13. What do we mean when we say “God is Just”? He punishes our sin
14. Why is God just? Because he is the fair judge, he must punish sin.
15. Whose sin will be punished? Everyone’s
16. Which 2 people can be punished for your self-love? Me or Jesus

Life in Jesus

1. Do God-lovers ever sin? Yes
2. Why are the 3 reasons God-lovers sin? Because they forget they were forgiven. They quit loving God and they start to think like a self-lover
3. What do God-lovers do when they know they have loved themselves and sinned? They tell God about it, ask for help and thank God for the Cross
4. What does it mean to “thank God for the Cross”? Thanking Him that he has already forgiven us
5. If a God-lover sins, does God quit loving Him? No, God always loves God-lovers, even when they sin
6. Is there anything that can ever separate a God-lover from God? Nothing can ever separate us from Him.

Salvation

1. What are “works”? Things people do to try to make God forgive them
2. Are you saved by faith or works? I am saved by faith
3. What is “faith? It is when we trust God’s promise to forgive us if we ask Him to, because I know that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive sins
4. Where does that faith come from? It is a gift from God
5. Who saves you then? God saves me
6. What happens if a person trusts in their own works to make God like them? They will not be forgiven
7. What will happen if a person has real faith in God’s promises? We will love and obey God

Jesus

1. How long has Jesus lived? He has always lived
2. How long has Jesus been God and a man? He became a man when He was born as a baby
3. Was He a man before he came to earth? No, He was only God
4. How long did he live on earth? He lived for 33 years
5. After he died and rose again, where did Jesus go? First, he visited his followers, then He went to heaven
6. Will He ever come back? Yes, one more time
7. What will He do when He comes back? He will take God-lovers to heaven and send self-lovers to hell
8. What is this called? It is called the Final Judgment
9. What will Jesus do after the judgment? He will live with the God-lovers forever in Heaven
10. What will we do with Him there? We will be with Him, getting to worship and love Him all the time