I invite you to consider the Good News of Jesus Christ and I invite you to surrender your life to the Lord Jesus.
“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” 1 Timothy 1:15
Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
The God who has created everything has revealed himself by what he has created; by the history of the Jewish people; by becoming one of us and walking among us for 33 years and allowing us to nail him to a cross; by his death and resurrection; by the unique collection of 66 books called the Bible; and by the Holy Spirit’s testimony to our hearts.
The Gospel (Good News) as I understand it from the Bible is this:
1. God created us for the purpose of a love relationship with him.
2. Since you can’t love a robot, he gave us the ability to reject him.
3. Each of us rejected him out of self-centeredness and rebellion and we became enemies of God. We each chose to try to be the gods of our own lives. Hell is a place for people who insist on being the gods of their own lives, not wanting to surrender to the God who created them and who loves them; not wanting to be with him on his terms for all eternity.
4. God already had a plan to rescue whoever would respond to his provision. Even though we deserved eternal capital punishment (death) God, himself, would become one of us and die in our place. He did come to die for us and he rose again to show, objectively, to humans that he was who he said he was.
5. God gave the Law in the Old Testament to show us his holiness; to show us that we could never live up to his holiness in our own efforts; and to show us that we needed a Savior. In fact the entire Old Testament points to Jesus. “God will provide the lamb” (Genesis 22:8).
6. We cannot save ourselves by our good works, trying to be a good person, or thinking the right thoughts.
We go from being enemies of God to becoming a child of God by humbling ourselves before God, repenting of our sin, receiving God’s forgiveness because of what Jesus did for us, putting on Jesus’ righteousness instead of a righteousness of our own, and asking Jesus to be the Lord of our lives for ever and ever, instead of trying to be the god of our own lives.
What I’m saying here is from the Bible and has nothing to do with the evils of historic “Christendom” or modern American religious right-wingers. And it doesn’t depend on whether or not Jim Baumgaertel is a self-righteous holier-than-thou, religious hypocrite zealot! Jesus wants to set me free of all of that! It is simply a matter of each of us realizing that we were once lost but now we’re found as we put our trust in the Lord Jesus.
I invite you to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Romans 5:8-10
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” John 1:12