You and God – the Reconciliation (while there’s still time)

Dear Friend,

God created the world, with all its beauty, for people like you to enjoy. He also created men and women so they could share in a loving relationship with Him.

Ever since God formed you in your mother’s womb, He has known you and everything about you. God has even counted the number of hairs on your head. He also knows when you rise and when you sit down.

Sadly, men and women turn away from Him and most deliberately choose not to know God – their loving Creator. The Bible says that the evidence of God’s eternal power and divine nature may be plainly seen in the wonders of creation. God has also given each person a conscience that speaks to them of right and wrong. Throughout your life you have suffered the results of wrong actions, both from the hands of others and by your own choices.

Although many bad things have happened to you, you are nevertheless responsible for your own actions and the choices you make as you go through life. When you have lied, stolen, cheated, or deceived others, the person you offended the most by these actions was GOD Himself. The Bible calls such actions “SIN” and all your unforgiven sin will one day be judged by God. The Bible says:”For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. No-one is blameless.

God hates sin because he is Holy (perfect). Sadly, your sin separates you from God and the loving relationship He seeks with you. All sin will, one day, be punished so this puts you in great danger. But the GOOD NEWS is that God is – even now – ready, willing and able to forgive your sins and remove that separation. This forgiveness by God restores the opportunity for you to have a loving relationship with God your creator. Are you prepared to turn from your present way of life, change direction and turn to God your creator for a fresh start? In doing this, God calls you to stop trusting in and relying upon everything you have, and surrender your life to Him. So your old life has to go when you take this step. However, God promises to give you His power to enable you to live a new life.

Have you heard of Jesus Christ of Nazareth? Hundreds of years before He was born into this world, many prophets wrote about His coming. These prophecies telling of Jesus’ coming are all in the Bible, a book about Him. Jesus’ coming to Earth from Heaven was according to God’s saving plan for all mankind.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth was sent by God the Father, out of love, into the world on a mission to rescue men and women. In obedience to God’s plan Jesus lived a sinless life, yet He willingly gave up His life and died on a cross to rescue you and me. By his death and resurrection three days later, Jesus broke the power of sin and death. After He rose from the dead, Jesus was seen alive again by hundreds of people.

By His death on a cross, Jesus paid the price for your sin and mine. The Bible says: “But God shows his love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus gave himself up as a sacrifice on our behalf by taking upon himself God’s punishment that our sins deserve. Jesus is now alive for evermore and sits at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, in a place of glory and honour.

DO YOU WANT TO BE RESCUED?

Do you want Jesus to rescue you from your sins and your present way of life? The Bible says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

If you cry out to Jesus to save you, He will set you free, give you eternal life and a place in God’s family. Because Jesus was sinless, yet paid the price due for your sin – in your place – you can trust in Him as your substitute and go free. So you do not have to suffer the consequences of your own sins. God is then able to help you live a new life, by His power. The Bible says: “For it is by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, so that none can boast”. God offers you His forgiveness as a free gift.

Jesus gives new life by His Spirit, which sets people free and brings them into God’s kingdom.

At the end of your life, Jesus will hold you alone responsible for all your unforgiven sins and you will be judged accordingly. If you choose to hold on to your sin, refusing Jesus’ free offer of forgiveness, you will bear the consequences on your own head – the wrath (anger) of God for eternity.

On the other hand, if you cry out to Jesus to forgive your sins NOW, He will do so and set you free from sin’s controlling power, He will wipe the slate clean and give you a fresh start. You can know total forgiveness of all the sins you have ever committed.

There is NO sin you have committed that Jesus cannot forgive, as He is “all-powerful” and “all-forgiving”. Jesus said: “I and the Father are one.” The sins He forgives in this life are forgiven, and forgotten, for eternity. at a crossroads in your life. Do you wish, whether you realise it or not, to remain a slave of sin? Or will you surrender your life to Jesus? Realise who this Jesus is. He is God, the one who died for you and offers you total forgiveness, peace and joy – now! The Bible says: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”

One day all men and women will stand before Jesus, the Judge of all mankind. The Bible says: “…man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement…”. Jesus alone has been given all power and authority in judgement by God the Father. Jesus therefore will decide where you will spend eternity. Although our human bodies eventually give out and die, our spirits live on beyond death.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE?

We all live on after death and the Bible makes clear that we end up in one of two places, either:

(a) a place of weeping, suffering, eternal torment and eternal separation from God for those who reject Him (Hell aka the Lake of Fire), or

(b) a place of eternal peace, love and joy (Heaven)in the presence of God, your creator.

Jesus himself said that most people walk through this life on the BROAD ROAD that leads to DESTRUCTION, rather than on the NARROW ROAD that leads to LIFE.

After this life is over your destiny is sealed based on your response to Jesus Christ in this life. So you need to respond to Jesus’ call on your life while you still have breath in your body! The Bible says: “Today is the day of salvation.”

No-one else can forgive your sin and make you right with God. Jesus truly is God’s unique gift to mankind!

How Does Anyone Get To Heaven?

Heaven is a perfect place, and only those who are perfect will make it. It’s a place of no suffering, no sin, and no evil. If God were to let in people who had less than perfect records, heaven would become as bad as earth. God would basically be saying that a little bit of evil doesn’t matter.

In this article, we’ll look closely at the “problem” God had, and the solution he came up with. We’ll also see just where good works fit in. And, we’ll see how grace makes it possible for everyone and anyone to get to heaven.

Love and Justice

God always does what’s right. He never cheats. He never falls for bribes. And He’s always concerned with justice. This means that when it comes to heaven and evil, he won’t compromise one bit. There will never be any evil in heaven.

On the other hand, God cares deeply about every person who has ever lived. He loves everyone regardless of what they have done, or not done. And He wants everyone to be in heaven. But to get to heaven, people have to be perfect: – without sin – faultless.

The Problem

So how do people with sin, get into heaven, a place without sin?

We’ve already seen that doing enough good works won’t get anyone into heaven. The only way for any of us to make it there, is if God takes away our sin. We can’t do that ourselves. But if God comes up with a plan to remove our sin, then we’re fully qualified to go to heaven. The only way that we can have our sin taken away is if it’s transferred to someone else.

If you have the debt of a house mortgage, you only become debt-free when your debt is transferred to someone else. If you pay off your home loan, you transfer your debt to the bank, and you become debt-free. If you sell your home to someone else, the proceeds of the sale enable you to pay back the money you owe to the bank. Again, you become debt-free. When your sin is transferred to someone else, you become sin-free.

The Plan

God offers us this plan: if we trust that he alone has the solution to this problem, then he will transfer our sin onto his son Jesus. Jesus is in effect a substitute in our place. Jesus qualifies for this job for three reasons:

Jesus is completely human, just like us. In any substitution, the substitute needs to be of the same kind.

Jesus is completely God. He has committed no sin of his own. Because he has no sin of his own to worry about, he can take the sin of others.

Jesus is an infinite Person. This is important, because it means he can have the sin of any number of people transferred onto him. If you had never sinned, you would still only be able to substitute for one other person. But Jesus can substitute for everyone.

All God asks is that we accept that no amount of good works can ever get us into heaven. If we come to that point, then we can accept his offer to transfer our sin to Jesus. Once our sin is transferred to Him, our standing before God is “sin-free”. It’s a legal transfer. God declares that legally, we are in right standing before him. There is no longer anything preventing us from getting to heaven.

Grace?

This double-transfer is free to us, and without any conditions. Our sin is taken away. Jesus’ good standing before God is transferred to us. We give this transfer the name grace. Grace is when we get something good that we don’t deserve. Grace is not a wage, or the result of us doing any kind of works. If that were the case, grace would no longer be grace!

No, grace is the completely undeserved good favour from God. God offers grace to everyone and anyone. Grace is what makes Christianity different from any other spiritual path. All other spiritual paths require us to do something to earn our way to heaven. God requires us to simply accept his solution, and trust in him alone.

What About Good Works?  

Good works are still an important part of Christianity, but as we’ve seen, they will never get us a ticket to heaven. Good works should stem from a person’s thankfulness to God. If we were in jail, and someone paid the bail to release us, we would be grateful! We would realise that nothing we had done contributed to our release. But, no doubt we would want to show our appreciation to that person in any way we could.

Good works are simply our way of showing our appreciation to God. God is concerned about justice in the world, about the poor, the homeless, the hungry, orphans, and those who cannot defend themselves. When we take on His concerns, we show that we want to join with God in addressing his concerns.

The following true story shows how God cares about both justice and love:

One day during the Great Depression, police hauled a frightened old man before the magistrate in a New York City night court. They charged him with petty larceny; he was starving and had stolen a loaf of bread. By coincidence, the mayor himself, Fiorello LaGuardia, was presiding over the court that night. LaGuardia sometimes sat in for judges as a way of keeping close to the citizens of the city.

LaGuardia fined the old man $10. “The law is the law, and cannot be broken” the mayor pointed out. At the same time, he took a $10 bill out of his own pocket, and told the man he would pay the fine for him. Then LaGuardia turned to the others in the courtroom and “cited” each of them for living in a city that did not reach out and help its poor and elderly, tempting them unduly to steal. The mayor fined everyone in the audience 50c each, passed around his famous fedora to collect the fines, and turned over its contents to the amazed defendant. The hat contained almost $50. The old man left the courtroom with tears in his eyes.

Author: Rupert Lineage