Do you know him as your Savior and Friend and Lord? Do you have a relationship with him - and He's not just someone you talk about on Sundays or pray to when you're in trouble? God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you.  That's why He made you.  It's why He made all of us - to be in relationship with Him.  Our sin, however, has separated us from Him.  It's like a great chasm between us, and we can't reach Him on our own.  It's our sin that did this.   We are all sinners, the Bible says.  So what is sin?  Sin is disobeying God and putting ourselves above him.  We've all chosen to do our own thing that serves our interests - lie, steal, lust, hate. We've been disobedient to God's laws.  We've made something else a god in our life - money, power, prestige, sex.  We've sought the approval of others more than God's. 

God is HOLY, and our sin has separated us from God.  That sin has to be punished because He is JUST.  He can't turn a blind eye to it because He wouldn't be God if He did.  However, God is also LOVING.  In fact, He loves us so much and wants us so much that He sent Jesus to take our punishment.  Jesus, His only Son who is also God, came as a baby and lived a human life.  Because He was born of the virgin Mary, He did not have the sin of the flesh passed down to him and He lived a sinless life on this earth - being obedient to all God His Father called Him to do.  He was 100% man and 100% God.  The Bible says He was tempted to sin just as every person is tempted, but He chose obedience to His Father. 

When the time came for Him to die, (Philippians 2:8 "he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.")  He took all humanity's sin on him and bore the punishment for our sins, so we wouldn't have to die an eternal death in hell.  (Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven.) But Jesus didn't stay in the grave.  He rose again and had victory over death.  (2 Timothy 2:8  "Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead. This is the Good News I preach.")  Because of this, we too can have victory over eternal death.

How then, can a person be saved?  The Bible says that all who believe in Jesus as God's Son and put their faith in Him for forgiveness of sin, will be saved from hell and will be in right relationship to God.  There is no sin that is too big for God to forgive!  It's more than knowledge about Him and saying a prayer that saves a person.  It's a heart that cries out to him knowing they need forgiveness and a heart that chooses to follow Him - wanting to live God's way, and not their own.  But it is not good works that save us.  It's not going to church or praying or doing good things (or just not doing bad things.) It is putting your faith in Christ that saves you.  The Bible says, "For it is by grace are you saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)  Does that mean you will never sin again? No. But God convicts and draws you back to Him.  God wants us to hate sin as He hates sin. Putting our faith in Christ and what He did on the cross for us restores us to being able to live in a daily personal relationship with Him.  

If you would like to know more about what it means to be a Christian and how to have a relationship with Christ, please contact us through our email: 2feetout@gmail.com.   We would love to talk to you.  

          Bible verses about Salvation:

• Romans 3:23  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Romans 5:12  "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death spread to all because all sinned
  
• Romans 5:8 But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 
  
• 1 John 1:9  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• Acts 16:30-31 " Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved."
• John 5:24  Truly, truly I say unto you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
• Romans 10:9  Because 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.
• John 10:27-30  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one.
• Acts 4:12  There is salvation in no one else.  For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
• John 14:6  I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; No one comes to the Father except through me.