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The most important thing you need to know about God is that He
loves you and went to great lengths to prove it. He created us in
His image, created a world for us to manage and had high hopes of
an intimate personal relationship that would last forever.
Then He did an astonishing thing. He gave us the ability to choose
whether to love Him back and make Him our life leader or to run
our own show because we thought we could do a better job.
Giving us free choice was a huge risk. Of course, God wouldn’t
have had it any other way. Who wants to be loved by robots? Sadly,
however, history has demonstrated that—left to our own devices—we
don’t always make the right choices. We are definitely
not as good as God at managing our lives and the world around us.
God’s Broken Heart
Our capacity to make bad choices is what the Bible calls sin. It
totally messed up God’s original plan and created a chasm between
God and Man that broke God’s heart. As a holy God He couldn’t
intimately relate with unholy creatures unless something could be
done to wipe our tainted slate clean. But He knew all our puny efforts
to earn our way back into His good graces would never be enough.
Our debt was too big. He’d have to find another way to get
His kids back.
And He did.
He sent His only son, Jesus, to earth to settle our account by
sacrificing His life on an ugly wooden cross. Somebody had to pay
for our sins, so Jesus stepped up to the plate and said He’d
take care of it. Has anybody else ever loved you like that?
But that wasn’t all. Three days later God raised Jesus from
the dead in an unbelievable in-your-face act that declared to all
the world that sin would not get the last word. God was still in
charge and not about to let His world be forever hijacked by evil.
However, there was a catch.
Our Turn to Choose
We still have to make a choice. God still doesn’t coerce
people into anything—even accepting a free gift. We’re
invited to choose to admit we’ve fallen short of His
standard and haven’t done a very good job of running our lives…and
willingly accept God’s outrageous offer of total forgiveness,
new life with a family of fellow believers here on earth and life
forever with Him in heaven after we die.
God is hoping this time we’ll get it right.
Not only is eternity part of the package, the Holy Spirit takes
up residence in our heart to help us make better choices from now
until we see God face to face. And God gave us the Bible, His Word,
with all the instructions we’ll need to live the lives we were
meant to live.
Finally, He allows His followers to carry out His unfinished plans
for the world and to model what He’s like--so others will have
the same opportunity we did to choose Him. We won’t always
get it right. He knew that. We’re works-in-progress. So He
offers ongoing forgiveness if we ask for it. It’s called grace.
God doesn’t want anything to separate us from His love
ever again.
That’s the deal, plain and simple. All that's standing between
you and a permanent relationship with Christ is to accept the gift.
If you still have questions, we offer the following resources for
your ongoing spiritual journey.
Web Sites Worth
a Visit
Recommended
Books
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