GOOD NEWS!

If you could have anything in this world, what would it be?  Success?  Happiness?  Healthy relationships?  Security?  Significance?  Those are things that we all want, & though we’ve all taken different paths in search of those things, few people in our world ever find them.  We’d like to share with you what the Bible tells us about those things and how we can find them through a personal relationship with God.

The Bible tells us that God loves us and created us to enjoy a personal relationship with Him.

“For 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

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  John 17:3

Though God created us to have a relationship with Him, we have been separated from God by what the Bible calls sin.  Sin is the natural tendency in each one of us to disregard God’s will for us and to do “our own thing.”  Because of our sin, we can’t know God personally or experience his love.

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 6:23

Because God is holy (perfect in every way), he can’t have  anything to do with evil. So, we have, by our own stubborn self-centeredness, created a problem that we can’t solve. All our attempts to “be good” come short since the root problem is our sinfulness.

Jesus Christ is God’s only solution to our problem.  It’s through Jesus that we can be restored to a right relationship with God.

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8

“Christ died for our sins … he was buried … he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures … he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred ... .” I Corinthians 15:3-6

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  John 14:6

While morality, philosophy, and religion represent our futile attempts to reach God, through Jesus Christ, God reached down to us and did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.  When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the penalty of our sinfulness, and when he rose from the dead, he demonstrated his power over death and his ability to give us eternal life.

Though we may “know” these things and believe them to be true, intellectual belief isn’t enough to help us.  Though eternal life is a gift, we need to individually receive that gift by receiving Jesus as our Savior and Lord; then we can have a personal relationship with God, experience his love, and live eternally with him.

“To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12

“It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9

We receive Christ by inviting him to take control of our lives.

"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."  Romans 10:9

You can receive Christ right now through prayer.

There are no “magic words” you have to use.  God sees your heart, and if you genuinely want to receive Christ into your life to save you and take control for you, he will do it.  Below is a prayer that you can pray to God if it expresses the desire of your heart.

Dear God, I want to have a relationship with you.  I know that you love me and that my sin has separated me from you.  I understand that no matter how hard I try, I can never earn or deserve your love, and that I deserve to be eternally separated from you because of my sin. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for me to die in my place and forgive me of my sin. I open the door of my life to you and receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving me, for coming into my life, and for giving me eternal life. Please take control of my life and help me to become the person that you created me to be. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer to God from your heart, several things just happened.

God forgave you of all your sins.

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  Colossians 1:13-14

You became a new creation.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”  II Corinthians 5:17

You began a personal relationship with God as his child.

“To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”  John 1:12

You received eternal life.

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”  John 5:24

You began the life-long adventure for which God created you.

Jesus said, “… I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  John  10:10

You became a part of the body of Christ, the Church, and were given a spiritual gift to use to serve Christ and others.

“All these (different gifts) are the works of the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines… Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”  I Corinthians 12:11, 27

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