Category: Devotionals

Faithful & Righteous to Forgive – 1 John 1, pt 3

The conclusion of a three-part devotional from 1 John 1:

Verse 5 “Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.”
The first part we need to know, is that God is perfect and holy. He has no sin (darkness) in Him. By contrast, we live in darkness and sin. This is what separates us from God and prevents us from having fellowship with Him.
Light and darkness cannot coexist. If it is light, it is not dark. If it is dark, it is not light. So we, in our darkness, cannot have fellowship with God, who is light.
This also prevents us from being able to go to heaven when we die.
That is our problem, and we have a choice to make. One option we have is to try to solve the problem of our sin by ourselves, but that doesn’t work, because:
Verse 6 “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with Him,’ and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.”
Many people say, “I am a Christian. I was born a Christian. I am very religious. I go to church. I do good things more often than I do bad things. I’m just not bad enough to deserve hell. Hell is for pagans, and I am a Christian.” But they have never come to Jesus personally to trust in Him alone for salvation. They have never repented in their hearts and trusted the fact that He died in their place on the cross for their sins to get them to heaven. They have instead trusted in their own good works. So their sins have never been forgiven. The darkness has never been taken away. They still live in darkness and carry a lifetime of unforgiven sin around on their backs. They may tell others, and tell themselves, that because they are religious, they have fellowship with God. But God’s word says that if we do that, we are lying—to ourselves, to God, and to others. We are not practicing truth. The truth is, we don’t have fellowship with Him when we remain in darkness.
So that’s one option of what we can do, and we’ve seen that it can’t work. So what will work to solve our problem, and give us eternal life and a relationship with God?
Verse 7 “But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
We come into the light. Jesus is the light of the world. He came and lived a perfect life, never sinning, not even once. He is so holy and perfect and righteous, that when we come by faith into His presence, we are exposed for how sinful we are. We believe that He lived a perfect life in our place, and that He died on the cross in our place and rose again. Then we find forgiveness of all our sin, and He places His light within us then. No longer do we walk in darkness, not knowing how to live properly. Now we have a relationship with Him, and the blood He shed for us on the cross takes away our sin and gives us eternal life.

Once we have by faith received eternal life in heaven, we need to live our lives walking in the light. We can continue to have a close relationship with Him, by letting Him continually cleanse us of our sin. We will sin less than we did before He saved us, but we would be lying to say we never have sin. But if we are truthful and honest with God about our sin, He has a solution that keeps our relationship with Him, even when we fail Him:
Verses 8-9 “If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

From this, we learn two things about Christ’s forgiveness of our sins. One, He is “faithful” to forgive us. That means you can trust Him to do it. He will keep His promise. If you have trusted Him as your Savior, you don’t have to worry that on Judgment Day you will come before Him and hear, “You know, I forgave you for a lot. And you kept sinning, and sometimes I felt like forgiving you, but there are these other sins that just offended Me so much that I decided not to forgive them. You’re going to have to go to hell after all.” No, Jesus will not do that to you. He is faithful to forgive us our sins. If you have come to Him and trusted Him alone as your Savior, you can rely on Him and know that you have eternal life, and that He will continue to cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
The second thing we learn is that He is “just” or “righteous” to forgive us our sins. That means simply that He is doing the right thing to forgive us when we confess, and that He is the one that has a right to do so. If you come to confess your sins to me, I have no right to forgive you and cleanse you. I am just a man. I have sinned myself. It would be not right, but blasphemous, for me to claim I can forgive your sin. If you go to a priest to confess your sins, he does not have the standing before God that allows him to cleanse you of your sins.
You must come to Jesus Himself, and confess your sinfulness to Him, and trust Him because He died in your place, to give you forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and a continual close relationship with God.

God: Get to know Me — 1 John 1, part 2

The next excerpt from the study of 1 John 1:
Verse 2 “that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us”
Christ is eternal, and He was with the Father from the very beginning. He became a man so that He could reach out to us on behalf of God the Father, revealing to us who God is, and so that He could be our advocate before God the Father, providing us salvation and eternal life.

Verses 3-4 “what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”
This message John and the others had seen and heard was being declared to us. This is because God the Father wants to have fellowship with each of us. He wants to have a relationship with us through His Son Jesus Christ.
When we don’t have that relationship, God is just some distant, unknown being. Perhaps we believe He is there. Maybe we just hope He is there. Maybe we want to know Him, but we don’t. We pray and wonder if our prayers can be heard. We don’t know if God loves us and hears us. We want guidance from Him on what to do, but we don’t hear His voice. So we feel a spiritual aloneness.
But this is not what God wants. Jesus came, and this message is being proclaimed to us, so that we might have a relationship with God—knowing Him, living with Him, and sharing all of life with Him. He wants to give us eternal life in heaven. He wants to hear our prayers. And He also knows the joys of this life are made complete only in fellowship with Him and in telling others about Him.

Tune in tomorrow, as in the next paragraph of 1 John 1 we find out what the message is—what we need to believe and trust in so that we can have this relationship with God and receive eternal life.

Witnesses of the Resurrection Weren’t Discredited

Here’s an excerpt of a message on 1 John 1 that I brought a couple years ago:

  Verse 1 “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life—“
Sometimes people try to deny the truth of the Bible and the truth of Who Jesus is. They have a problem, though. The historical record of Christ, and the eyewitness testimony available from Christ’s contemporaries, make it hard for them to have any way to dispute the claims of Scripture.
Let me give you an example of why this is so. A man who lived in our building died yesterday, so right now, the common ritual of having his body lie there at the home for three days of viewing is going on. People are coming and seeing with their own eyes that he is dead.
Imagine I went out tomorrow morning and started telling people that this man has come back to life. And then I started to write a book claiming he has risen from the dead, as part of a plan in my mind to deceive people centuries into the future into believing this man had arisen.
Well, everyone around would denounce my message. They would go to the body and say, “Look. This man is dead. You can’t fool anyone.” The false record I was writing would be done away with, and I would be proven a fool and a liar. Not a single person would be crazy enough to believe my message or to stand with me in proclaiming it. And time would not improve my reputation or restore my credibility.
But here, John is able to write about Christ as undisputable fact. He can truthfully say, we saw Him bodily before His death. We watched Him die on the cross. We saw Him buried. Then He arose, and we saw Him, listened to Him, and touched Him.
John’s contemporaries couldn’t dispute this message. John didn’t die a discredited fool, nor did the hundreds of others who attested to having seen Christ crucified and resurrected.
As the study of 1 John 1 continues here daily, we will learn more about this all-important message that God wants us all to know and understand.

The perfect book you just gotta read

The Bible is the perfect book–correct in its every claim, authoritative in its every demand, helpful for every worthy pursuit, relevant for every generation and culture, necessary for every individual, accurate in its historical accounts, flawless in its prophecies of things to come, boundless in its ability to make God known, trustworthy in its every promise, consistent and cohesive in all its passages, and reliable and complete as a resource for meeting every spiritual need. It speaks to the intellect, and to the heart. It gives wisdom, and knowledge.
It has stood the test of time, proving itself unlimited in its power to withstand scrutiny of the honest seeker, and even the assault of disingenuous attacks thrust upon it by those of hard hearts who distort what it says or who are just unwilling to read it with an open mind.

What’s more, the Bible is God’s personal message for you. It applies to all of humanity as a whole, but it also speaks to you personally as an individual. It was written with you in mind.
It contains information you must understand if you want to go to heaven. God requires you to know Him, and He will judge you when you die based on your response to what He has revealed in the Bible, whether you’ve chosen to read it or not. God loves you and wants fellowship with you; and He wrote this book so that through it, He could establish a relationship with you, that will begin in this life, and grow, and last forever. You were created in God’s image, so you will never cease to be. You will exist somewhere forever. And whether your eternal state is one of infinite joy or unspeakable suffering is entirely dependent upon whether or not you come in this life to know God personally as He has presented Himself in the Bible. There is no other source of information that can replace the Bible as a guide on the road to heaven. No human teacher of any religion or faith can speak truth apart from what God has said in this book. No religious tradition can help you, if you follow it, instead of the decrees of the Bible.
And the Bible has answers, help, and comfort for every problem or issue you are facing today. If you live to be 110, you will never face any trial or tragedy outside the bounds of the Bible’s ability to help. It contains the answer to grief, to pain, to sorrow, to rejection, to every form of problem in human relationships, to loneliness, to depression, to anger, to violence, to hunger, to guilt, to sins you’ve committed, to sins committed against you, to family problems, to work problems, to money problems, to health problems, to ignorance, to bigotry, to war, to poverty, to terrorism, to fear, to death, to loss, to how to pray effectively, and to every other thing.
Don’t miss out. Read it. Believe it. Study it. Learn it. Find life in Christ through it. Share it with others.
The same message in Romanian:
Biblia este cartea perfectă – corectă în fiecare din afirmațiile ei, cu autoritate în toate cerințele ei, de ajutor pentru orice căutare valoroasă, relevantă pentru orice generație și cultură, necesară pentru fiecare persoană, corectă în înregistrările ei istorice, ireproșabilă în proorociile lucrurilor viitoare, nelimitată în abilitatea de a-L face cunoscut pe Dumnezeu, demnă de încredere în fiecare promisiune, consistentă și coezivă în toate pasajele ei, completă și de încredere ca și resursă de împlinire a fiecărei nevoie spirituală.  Vorbește intelectului și inimii. Dă înțelepciune și cunoaștere. A rezistat probei timpului, dovedindu-se nelimitată în puterea sa de a sta în picioare în fața cercetării celui ce caută din toată inima și chiar asaltului atacurilor viclene aruncate asupra ei de cei cu inimi întărite care deformează mesajul ei sau care nu vor să o citească cu o minte deschisă.
Și mai mult, Biblia este mesajul lui Dumnezeu pentru tine. Se aplică întregii umanități ca un întreg, dar de asemenea îți vorbește în mod personal ca și individ. A fost scrisă cu tine în minte. Conține informații pe care trebuie să le înțelegi dacă vrei să ajungi în rai.  Dumnezeu îți cere să-L cunoști, și El te va judeca după ce vei muri bazat pe răspunsul tău referitor la ceea ce a fost revelat  în Biblie, dacă ai ales să-l citești sau nu. Dumnezeu te iubește și vrea să aibă părtășie cu tine; El a scris această carte ca prin ea să poată stabili o relație cu tine, care va începe în această viață, va crește și va dura o veșnicie. Ai fost creat după chipul și asemănarea lui Dumnezeu, astfel că nu vei înceta niciodată să exiști. Vei exista undeva pentru totdeauna.  Iar statutul tău etern va fi ori unul de o fericire infinită ori unul de o durere de nerostit– depinde întru totul de tine – dacă vei ajunge în această viață să-L cunoști în mod personal pe Dumnezeu așa cum s-a prezentat El Însuși în Biblie. Nu există nici o altă sursă de informație ce poate înlocui Biblia ca ghid spre drumul către rai. Nici un om învățător al unei alte religii sau credințe nu poate vorbi adevărul fără ceea ce a spus Dumnezeu în această carte. Nici o tradiție religioasă nu te poate ajuta dacă o urmezi, în locul regulilor Bibliei. Iar Biblia are răspunsuri, ajutor și mângâiere pentru orice problemă cu care te confrunți astăzi. Dacă trăiești până la 110 ani, nu te vei confrunta cu nici o încercare sau tragedie ce nu-și va putea găsi ajutorul în Biblie. Conține răspunsul pentru supărare, durere, necaz, respingere, pentru orice formă a problemelor în relațiile umane, pentru singurătate, deprimare, mânie, violență, foame, vinovăție, pentru păcatele pe care le-ai făcut, pentru păcatele comise împotriva ta, pentru problemele familiale, problemele legate de lucru, de bani, de sănătate, pentru ignoranță, bigotism, război, sărăcie, terorism, teamă, moarte, pierdere, cum să te rogi într-un mod eficient și pentru fiecare alt lucru.

It Is Written

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
–Matthew 4:4
How wonderful and reliable is the written Word of God! Here in this passage, even the Author of the Scriptures repeatedly turns to them in the midst of a war of words with Satan. And with those Scriptures, He utterly conquers the enemy.
Jesus IS God, so every word that came from Him was proceeding forth out of the mouth of God. Yet He did not rely only on His words and thoughts of the moment to combat the devil, but recalled the permanent, eternal words that He had inspired men to write down over the centuries.
How much more, then, should we as His people turn not to our own wits or our own words to combat the forces of evil, but turn to these precious words of life found in the Holy Scriptures. The tempter is powerless over the man who knows the Word and commits in his heart to obeying it.
No battle, not even a battle against Satan’s temptations, is unwinable if your chief weapon is the Sword of the Spirit. Satan can’t win a debate against the words of God, because they aren’t like words spoken by men. God’s words are inhabited by His infinite power, so the devil fails to deceive those who know them.
If we’re armed with the Bible, we learn to be victorious in the Christian life. His Spirit within us uses the Word to help us say “no” to the carnal things this world lives on, even though our flesh still craves them. As we walk with Him and grow in maturity of faith, day by day we see our spiritual hunger for the Word grow stronger than the desires of our flesh.
Is your main focus in life seeking to meet your physical desires and needs? If so, you are in danger, because the enemy stands ready to exploit every physical desire and every selfish impulse in ways that will defile and destroy you. However, if you hunger most greatly for the “bread” of God’s Word, you will truly live the abundant life. “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
Oh, Father, we plead with You: Increase our hunger for Your beautiful word, that we may feed on it and live.

Mourning what God mourns

They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.” When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
–Nehemiah 1:3-4


Nehemiah was taken by surprise that day when he asked how things were in the home country of Israel.
Things are bad, was the report. Very bad. The capital city had suffered disgrace, and its people were very insecure because there was no gate to protect them from further trouble and harm. They had turned their backs on God and forgotten His covenant with them. So God had lifted His hand of protection from them for a time. Now they had begun to repent and return to the land, but the consequences of their sins lingered, and they were feeling vulnerable, humiliated, and defenseless.
Nehemiah was not personally affected. In fact, he lived in peace, safety, and extravagance as a servant and possibly a confidant of a powerful foreign king. But that didn’t matter now. Because Nehemiah loved his country, and more importantly, he loved the God who had formed his country and blessed it greatly with His presence, provision and protection in generations past. So this dire report shook Nehemiah’s soul.
At first, all he could do was cry. Just sit down and weep tears that welled up from a pain deep in his bones. This pain wouldn’t fade quickly. It would take several days.
Several days of mourning.
Several days of fasting.
Several days of crying out to the God of Israel and the God of heaven for His restoring hand to be upon His people once again.
Can you identify?
Do you mourn over the condition of your country, or your church, or your family? Are you in a situation where the people and places you care most about are in turmoil that rots your life with sadness while comfort seems to be so slow in coming?
If that’s the case, take heart. Because God uses a person who mourns what He mourns. God blesses the one who weeps when He weeps.
Nehemiah was such a man. So God had a plan for him. He would use Nehemiah to do some amazing things and bring about a level of restoration that seemed impossible in that moment when the bad news came.
For a time, Nehemiah would weep, and mourn, and fast, and pray. Then God would turn Nehemiah’s grief into dogged determination and utter reliance upon Him, and He would use Nehemiah as His instrument to rebuild a wall around the Holy City. Nehemiah’s resulting walk of faith would give him one of the most impressive testimonies in Bible history.
If the walls have come down for you, this book will be one you’ll enjoy studying. It will bring you hope, and give you guidance on how to be used of God to rebuild the walls once again.
If you’re grieving today over the news that has come your way, then God is already taking you on the first step of a journey of rebuilding. Now is the time for you to follow Nehemiah’s example on how to handle grief: When everything falls apart, take your tears to the Lord. In heartfelt prayer and an attitude of recognizing just how deeply you need Him, pray. Then today’s tears can become the seeds of tomorrow’s joy, because they will build your resolve and fortify your trust in a God who never disappoints those whose desire to serve Him does not wane and whose trust in Him does not waver.

Psalm 92

Psalm 92

1 It is good to praise the LORD, to sing praise to Your name, Most High,  2 to declare Your faithful love in the morning and Your faithfulness at night,  3 with a ten-stringed harp and the music of a lyre.  4 For You have made me rejoice, LORD, by what You have done; I will shout for joy because of the works of Your hands.  5 How magnificent are Your works, LORD, how profound Your thoughts!  6 A stupid person does not know, a fool does not understand this:  7 though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be eternally destroyed. 8 But You, LORD, are exalted forever. 9 For indeed, LORD, Your enemies— indeed, Your enemies will perish; all evildoers will be scattered…. 12 The righteous thrive like a palm tree and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon.  13 Planted in the house of the LORD, they thrive in the courtyards of our God.  14 They will still bear fruit in old age, healthy and green,  15 to declare: “The LORD is just; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Satan’s Epitaph

The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire…. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
–Revelation 20:10

Sometime in the future:

Here, suffering the continuous agony he deserves, lies Satan.  (aka the devil, the tempter, the deceiver, the accuser of the brethren.)
Early in his life, known by his given name of Lucifer, he was given beauty and privilege and the pleasure of being in the presence of the Almighty, All-Knowing God.  However, suffering from overwhelming pride and delusions of grandeur, he decided to try to unseat the One and Only from His throne and take over.  (Isaiah 14:12-15)  Obviously, that was a plan doomed to failure.
Then Satan spent his life going to and fro about the earth in an a 24/7 attempt to get back at God for His righteous judgment.  (Job 1)  For thousands of years, Satan battled against God, facing one defeat after another, for it is written, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”  (1 John 4:4)  With each attempt, Satan was multiplying the wrath of God that would eventually be his lot. (Matthew 25:41)
When the time came for humanity’s redemption, God Himself came to earth as a man to defeat Satan once and for all.  He allowed the devil to bruise His heel, but in the process, He crushed the devil’s head when He went to the cross and rose again.  (Genesis 3:15)
Because of that sacrificial death and resurrection, people who had been taken captive by the devil to do his will were set free, (2 Timothy 2:26) and they were guaranteed eternal life in heaven where they would be clothed in the spotless garments of the redeemed and live out the rest of eternity in bliss, loving and serving God and being loved by Him.  For it is written, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:17)
As time grew near for the end of Satan’s days of freedom, he suffered the horror of seeing those people, through no effort or merit of their own, defeating him utterly in the power of God.  For it is written, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” (Rev. 12:11)
In that moment, one of Satan’s most terrifying hours to date, it became more clear to him than ever before that unlike the Redeemed, he had absolutely no hope for the future whatsoever.  His anger flared up like never before (Rev. 12:12) and for a brief time he won some battles in his losing war.  He went on lying and deceiving many, but all the while he knew that in the end he would amount to nothing that lasts.  For it is written, “a lie is but for a moment, but the lips of truth will be established,” (Proverbs 12:19) and it is also written, “For this purpose was the Son of God revealed:  to destroy all the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)
Satan would never attain the honor and glory he wanted.  He would not be worshiped for all eternity.  He would have no power, no prestige, no pleasure, no position, no purpose, and no reason for living.  He would always exist, but never live, and never escape God’s wrath.  Realizing that was coming, the devil grew all the more vengeful, angry, and violent.  But then, finally, the ultimate end came for him.  Christ Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, defeated him and judged him and condemned him forever.  Then He cast him into the lake of fire, where he will always remain.
There, he will be completely engulfed from head to toe in the hottest flames that have ever burned.  His suffering will be without end and without pause.  The infinite wrath of an infinite God will be poured out upon him in full, excruciating measure.  And despite the power he wielded for a time on earth, there was never a single thing he could do to change that fact or improve his destiny.  For his epitaph was written long ago:  He “will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.”
Remember that the next time he bothers you.  Then take your focus off of him and start praising the Lord for what your future holds with Jesus.

What you are, & what you’re not

You are not homo sapiens.  You are not a primate.  You are not a species in an animal kingdom.  You are not related to any animals, nor are you descended from any animals. You did not evolve into what you are.

You are a special creation, made in the image and likeness of the all-knowing God by whom all things, including you, were made.  You, therefore, have an eternal soul and will exist somewhere forever.  You are accountable to the God who made you.  You were designed to be in a good and lovely relationship with Him that would be established in this life on earth and last forever.

But you are a sinner, which simply means that you were born living in rebellion against Him, with a nature bent toward seeking what you want instead of what pleases your Maker.  To have a relationship with Him does not require religiousness; it requires faith and trust in Him, and in what He has done for you to bring you to Himself.  He became a man like you, the man Christ Jesus.  He bore your sins as He died on the cross, absorbing all of the punishment your sins have earned.  Then He came alive again and still lives today.  By belief and trust in Him, you can be saved, your sins can be forgiven, and you can receive His everlasting love forever.

That’s who you are, and who you were made to be.

The Good Shepherd that does WHAT?!?

So last week, as we were in the village of Timpa and Lili was sharing the gospel with a 22-year-old woman in front of her house, my mind started to wander because of a flock of sheep that was behind us.  I live in a city of near half a million people, so I don’t see sheep every day.  And for half an hour or so, I was just noticing things about sheep: 1) All they really ever do is stand around eating; 2) They aren’t very attractive; 3) They don’t keep clean and they smell almost as bad as pigs; 4) They’re pretty easily scared and not that bright.  A motorcycle goes by and hearing the sound they run in a panic in every direction, including toward it.

Then, suddenly, the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the verse from John 10.  The one where Jesus identified Himself as “the Good Shepherd, Who lays down His life for the sheep.”  I had never realized what a radically shocking statement that was before.  When you just look at the verse with the Sunday school flannelgraphs of cute little lambs and a smiling, bearded shepherd, you think, “So Jesus gave His life for us.  Good.”

But when you’re standing there looking at sheep, and that verse comes to mind, it jars you.  You think to yourself, “the good shepherd who did WHAT?  If I were ever to suffer the misfortune of having to live my life taking care of this flock of dumb animals, and a wolf or lion wanted to make lunch of them, I wouldn’t even for a moment consider sacrificing myself to save these worthless bags of wool.”

The thing is, that’s how the people Jesus was speaking to must have responded.  And really, if anything, He was understating His love for us.  The difference between me and a sheep is tiny compared to the difference between my Savior and me.  And yet, He really did it.  He gave His life for the sheep.

Indescribable.  Unbelieveable.  Inconceivable, this gospel message is.  And yet totally true.  I stand amazed.  And hope you do, too.

Are you good enough to escape hell & go to heaven?

If you’re like most people, you would look at your life and say, “I’m a basically good person. A lot of people I know do bad things that I don’t do, and most of the things I do are good and decent. I’ve been baptized and I go to church, so I’m a Christian. And I believe that God should let me into heaven, instead of sending me to hell to suffer forever.”

If God let people who were “more good than bad” into heaven, and sent only the most violent, wicked people to hell, then you might be right to think such things. But God’s standard is much different. And it’s what He thinks of you, not what you think of yourself, that will matter on judgment day.

You see, God isn’t just “basically good.” He is perfect. He is holy. The Bible says, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” He is completely without sin, so He requires of you absolute, perfect sinlessness. And God says you haven’t lived a good enough life to make it. No one has. “There is no one righteous,” says the Lord, “no, not one.” That’s how the perfect and just God evaluates us in His word. “All we like sheep have gone astray, turning, every one, to his own way,” according to the Bible. That means that none of us lives the way of righteousness and pleasing God. That’s bad news to hear. But better that you hear it now, while you can do something about it, than to wait until your life is over and it’s forever too late.

Finding the solution

God is holy, and must punish all of your sins. But even though you are unworthy as a sinner, God loves you. So He made a way to punish your sins and still let you escape hell. “The Lord has laid on Him (Jesus Christ) the iniquity of us all,” the Bible says. When Jesus was on the cross, He was dying for every sin you have ever done. Your sin was laid on Him, and He absorbed all of the punishment of hell in your place. Then He rose from the grave, showing that His sacrifice was enough to pay the price for all of your sins against God.

God cannot lie, and He keeps every promise He makes. And today He promises you that if you will trust not in yourself or your religion, but only in what Jesus did for you by dying in your place on the cross, you will be forgiven of all your sins. You can have that forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life in heaven as a free gift from God right now.

If you believe these things God has said, you can tell Him so now in prayer. Tell Him, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. But I believe You love me and died on the cross to be punished for my sins in my place. Thank You for sacrificing Yourself, so that I could live with You forever in heaven, instead of facing the punishment my life has earned. I’m trusting You now to cleanse me and forgive all my sins, because You promised You would if I asked You in faith. Thank You for making me a child of God and assuring me salvation forever. Help me now to live the rest of my life as an offering of thanks to You. Amen”