Now it's time for the really, really Good News!
God always knew our helpless plight and had a plan prepared from before the universe began -- a plan to save His people. In the Bible's book of John, in chapter 3, verse 16, Jesus tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus, to come here (God became man on earth); live the perfect, holy, sinless life that God demands from all of us (only Jesus could do this, because He is perfect God); take our place in dying the death we deserved (His death on the cross, even though He was innocent, bore ALL our sin and shame); was buried; and literally rose from the dead on the third day, conquering death's stranglehold on all human beings, and making His new life our own!
This is amazingly good news! It's the greatest news the world and the universe has ever known! God could have left everyone to suffer the just punishment for our sins; but instead, because of His amazing, mind-boggling Love, He chose to save those who call upon Him to deliver them from their sin and its consequences!
Though all of this comes freely at Jesus's expense, you must count the cost in deciding whether to accept this Truth or reject It. As a result of what Jesus did to satisfy God's demand for perfection and the penalty of death, we can have His eternal life, under these conditions:
- You must first admit and acknowledge that you are indeed a wicked sinner, incapable of saving yourself from the guaranteed penalty of eternal hell. You realize and agree that you deserve God's punishment for breaking His Laws, and you want to be saved from this sickness of sin that ravages you.
- In admitting your sinful state, you must repent of your sin to God, committing yourself to turn away from giving in to your sinful impulses and desires. While you will still continue to sin, it will no longer have a mastery over you. With the help of God the Holy Spirit dwelling within you now, you will be able to battle these natural impulses and lusts, and finally start doing genuine good works that please God. These good works can do nothing to save you from hell, but once you become God's child, your good works will prove that you are one of His. You will also now develop a hatred of sin, gradually extinguishing its power in your life. You will never reach perfection while on earth, but the Holy Spirit will daily, continually help you to do what's right over what is wrong, more than you ever could or ever did before.
- You must believe and accept that Jesus, in what He accomplished as the God-man here on earth, is the one and only way to God the Father. Jesus did all the work, and His perfect holiness now becomes yours, because your sin became His sin on that cross. God now only sees you in Jesus' perfection. You are perfect & holy before Him through Jesus. There is no other way to gain God's favor or acceptance into His heaven. This doesn't mean you can go on in your sin; in fact, if your faith is real and saving, you will want to get as far away from your sinful practices as you can, particularly now that you have a existing relationship with God. What man, when now married to his wife, keeps flirting with and courting other women? What woman, when married, regularly goes out with other men and spends time away with them? If we truly have a relationship with God, we will work to remain faithful to Him; it'll be a new, but natural, by-product of the relationship we claim to have with Him. There is no faithfulness when there really is no relationship.
- You must confess, therefore, that Jesus now reigns as Lord of your life. Your old self is now crucified on His cross, and it is Him who now lives in and through you. He, through His own Word, the Bible, renews all of your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions. He guides all of your relationships and interactions. He directs all of your circumstances. You have gone from being a slave of sin and death to a slave of Jesus Christ, but His mastery over you produces freedom and life. You have now, per se, exited "the Matrix"!
- Understand that your life until your physical death will be mostly fully of trials and challenges. Jesus said that if the world hated Him while He was on earth, it will hate you, too; because you are now working on His behalf in the lives of others, telling them about their sin-sick condition. You are now His ambassador for the remainder of your time here on earth; and unlike any of the other false religions out there that perform good works, receive glory and defense from men and women, and paint the self as good and god-like, you will find yourself in the only true religion that the world loves to hate and persecute. Jesus calls for you to endure & persevere to the end of this earthly life, and you will reach your eternal reward in heaven. It will not be easy, but it's nothing compared to the glorious life that awaits you for eternity!
If you have spoken or prayed these things to God, not out of emotion or pressure or fear or to gain others' acceptance, but out of a heart broken over the reality of sin and its consequences and one that's full of love for such a loving God, you are now a child of God, sealed forever in His family. You've been adopted, with access to all of the blessings God bestows upon His royal children--both in this life (though in a limited form) and in the eternal life to come.
After you view the video below, go to the Resources Page to find out where to go now in your new faith.
