How To Know God Calvary
Chapel Fallbrook
How to Know God
Our greatest desire is for people to come to know God
personally. The simple truth is that there is a God who created
and loves you very much. (
Genesis 1:1) He gave us life and
deserves our gratitude and love.
We, however, have chosen to disobey Him and sin against Him; all
of us have done wrong and failed to do what is right. (
Romans
3:23) We may not be more sinful than our neighbor, or we may be
far worse than anyone we know, it does not matter. Either way,
we are guilty before God. (
1 John 1:8)
God is perfect, completely good, always right and fair. He
cannot tolerate sin. He cannot simply overlook the fact that we
have chosen to disobey Him. The Bible says "the wages of sin is
death." (
Romans 6:23) This means that the fair payment for our
rebellion against God is death. It is the punishment that we
deserve.
Jesus, the one and only Son of God, came to earth and lived a
perfect sinless life. He was crucified even though He was
completely innocent. He received the punishment that we
deserved. He was the perfect sacrifice, He was put into our
place and took on Himself the sentence of death that should have
been ours. (
Romans
5:8)
Jesus did not, however, remain dead. After three days, He rose
from the grave and later ascended into heaven. He will return
for all those who are trusting in Him as their Savior.
Jesus died for you. You can be saved by asking Him for
forgiveness from your sins. If you are willing to repent of your
sin, He is waiting to forgive you. It doesn't matter what you
have done in the past, if you cry out to Jesus for forgiveness,
He will not reject you. You need to look at your life, admit
that you are a sinner, genuinely desire to turn your back on
that sin, and ask Him to forgive you. If you do this, He
promises to forgive you.
True Christianity is not about attending a particular church, or
how your parents raised you, or what country you were born in.
Being a Christian means that you have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, that He is your Savior. It's not good enough
that your priest, pastor, mother, or aunt knows Jesus, you must
know Him for yourself. They cannot believe in Him for you, you
must believe for yourself.
Jesus is everywhere all the time. He can hear you now if you ask
Him for forgiveness. Please turn your life over to Him now. Time
slips by so quickly, don't miss this opportunity. If you want to
pray and ask Jesus to be your Savior, you can say a prayer
something like this:
"Jesus, I know that I have sinned against you. I know the truth
is that I have sinned by my own choice, and I am the one
responsible for it. I know that I have earned punishment from
You, and that the fair punishment would be death. Jesus, I
believe that You died in my place. Forgive me for my sin. I
cannot cover or take my sin away, I am relying totally and only
on You. You are the only one who can save me. I reject my sin, I
turn away from it. Come into my life, take away my sin, and show
me how to live my life in a way that is right and pleasing to
You."
If you have prayed this, YOU ARE SAVED! You are now completely
forgiven, a new creation, innocent in the eyes of God. Welcome
to the family of God!
It is important for you to start to grow in your relationship
with Jesus. Just like any relationship, you need to spend time
with someone if you want to know them well.
The way to
know God is through the Bible and prayer. It's also important to
find a church you can attend where they teach the Bible. This
will allow you to talk with a pastor who will help explain
questions you might have, and it will give you a chance
to spend time with other Christians who can encourage you.
If your "education" has taught you there is no God then you
have been studying the wrong things. You have a choice what to
study. Some good-hearted Christians will tell you that you have
to "take a step of faith" to believe in Jesus. That is not true.
You could choose to study about Christianity. A good place to
start is
alwaysbeready.com