God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life!
God's love is perfect. John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
God has a wonderful plan. Jesus said in John 10:10: "... I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
Why is it that most people are not experiencing that abundant life?
Man is sinful and separated from God.
Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.
Man is sinful. Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Man was created to have fellowship with God; but, because of his own stubborn self-will, he chose to go his own independent way and fellowship with God was broken. This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is an evidence of what the Bible calls sin.
Man Is Separated. Romans 6:23 says: "The wages of sin is death."
God is holy and man is sinful. A great gulf separates the two. Man is continually trying to reach God and the abundant life through his own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or religion - but he inevitably fails.
However, the only way to bridge this gulf...
Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin.
Through Him - only - you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.
He died in our place. Romans 5:8 says: "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
He rose from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 says: "Christ died for our sins... He was buried... He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures... He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred..."
He Is the Only Way to God. John 14:6 says: "...I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
God has bridged the gulf that separates us from Him by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.
It is not enough just to know these three things...
We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.
We must receive Christ. John 1:12 says: "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name."
We receive Christ through faith. Ephesians 2:8,9 says: "By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as result of works that no one should boast."
Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough.
Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will. To repent means to "change direction." Acts 3:19 says, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."
The Bible tells us that we then become new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Why don’t you take that step today and become a new creation in Christ? Let us know and we will help you grow in Him.
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