If you have not heard of the Good News of Jesus Christ, we would love to explain what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ!
God gave His Law, referred to as the Ten Commandments, to His servant Moses to pass along to the Israelites in Exodus 20. The Law is a simplistic set of rules that God required His people to abide by. Any deviation from this Law is a defection from God’s holy standard, and is called sin.
The Ten Commandments
Exodus 20
And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
In the New Testament, Jesus stepped it up when he said that even hating your brother (fellow man) was considered murder, or looking upon a woman with lust was adultery in God’s eyes. It becomes even more clear that no man can ever live up to the requirement of perfection in order to be in the presence of a Holy God. When we look into the mirror of God’s Law, we see ourselves as wretched sinners who have transgressed God’s holy Law (sinned) and fallen short of God’s standard for righteousness. We can finally see our sin for what it truly is – an affront to God, and something that will cause us to be judged guilty on judgment day, and be given the eternal consequence of hell.
However, the GOOD NEWS is that Jesus paid that penalty for you, and for me. All you have to do is accept the FREE GIFT of eternal life offered to you when Jesus died on the cross, died and was buried and raised three days later, defeating sin and death.
Summation of the Good News
We are all sinners, separated from God. God sent His Only begotten Son, Jesus, so that whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life. Jesus was conceived by God’s Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin, was without sin, lived a sinless perfect life, was crucified and died and was buried. He rose 3 days later and defeated and conquered death. For the those that place their faith in Jesus’ finished work on the Cross and become a Believer, death has no more sting!!
The Romans Road
- For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23
- As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
- But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
- For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
- Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1
- that 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. For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved. Romans 10:9-10
(Click here to skip to the Prayer of Salvation below)
A bit more in depth
The bad news is that we are all separated from God. We all were born with a sin nature that got handed down to us from Adam after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden by disobeying God when He told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From that moment, they were separated from God by their sin, and the eternal blissful life that they were experiencing with God was stripped from them. We all inherit the sin of Adam, as the sin nature is passed down through the seed of man. God gave His Moral Law, called the Ten Commandments, to help us understand our need for a Savior.
Even though we may try hard to be good people, our spirit is dead, and our righteousness is like filthy rags – having no righteousness of our own. We are unable and incapable of living a life to God’s righteous standards on our own. We can never be good enough to obtain the relationship that Adam and Eve once shared with God before they sinned in the Garden of Eden. This relationship is what we are all actually seeking after in life, whether we realize it or not. Peace is what we all strive for in our daily lives, but genuine peace can only come by being in right standing with God.
Without Jesus, we are all on a trajectory of living this one life on earth and then dying and going to a place separated from God for all eternity because we have transgressed the Law of God. Being that God Himself is love, peace, joy, faithfulness, goodness, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, self-control, there will be none of that in hell – the place that God designed for the devil and his angels who rebelled against God. God created a place for the devil and his angels, but the devil is mad at God and wants to take as many people as he can with him to hell where there is thick blackness and endless torment. Because all sin must be punished according to God’s Law, we won’t escape until we pay the last cent (which, we cannot do on our own).
But Jesus came to die in our place, taking upon Himself the wrath of the Father against sin – the wrath that we all deserve for the many ways in which we have broken God’s commandments. The commandments were given so that we can understand that we are incapable of living a sinless life on our own. We have all broken the commandments of God. And, according to Scripture, if one is guilty of breaking one commandment, then he is guilty of breaking them all. We cannot say that we are without sin, unless we are lying.
We can turn from our ways and repent when we truly understand that we are separated from God, and without Jesus’ intervention in our lives to take upon Himself the wrath of God that we fully deserve, we will end up going to the place that God created for the devil and his angels. We call upon the Name of Jesus to save us, and to become the substitutionary atonement for our sin, (as He chose to do of His own accord).
At the moment that we genuinely surrender and ask Jesus to become the propitiation for our sin debt, and make Jesus the Lord of our lives, He cleanses us from all unrighteousness by the power of His blood. Because of Jesus’ perfection and His ability to take upon Himself the wrath that we all deserved, His blood is the only acceptable means to cleanse us and make us righteous before a Holy God. He clothes us in His righteousness as a robe, and when the Father looks at us, He now sees Jesus’s righteousness instead of our filthy rags of self-righteousness.
We are in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit at the moment of rebirth, and Holy Spirit gives us power to overcome the things of this world that cause us to wander/stray/lose focus on God and His kingdom. Our eternal life starts the moment that we accept the free offer of salvation that Jesus has offered us in His sacrifice on the cross at calvary 2,000 years ago.
Prayer of Salvation:
If you would like to make Jesus the Lord of your life, and receive the free gift of salvation that He offers to all who will follow Him, pray something similar to the below prayer. Let it flow from your own heart, and words. Below, the main points you need to confess to Him are underlined. (And, if you can’t find it in your heart to truly believe this prayer right now, ask God to help you understand the truth of who He is, and for help to believe it, and help to surrender to His Lordship in your life.)
God in Heaven, I ask that You would show me how to love You, and show me Who You are. Help me to follow You, and to surrender my life completely into Your hands. God, I believe that You are Holy and Just, and that You punish all sin.
I know that I am a sinner as I have broken Your Law, and I am guilty before You. And, I believe that You loved me so much that instead of allowing me to suffer the eternal consequences of my own sin, You sent Your one and only Son Jesus to die on the cross on my behalf, to take the punishment of my sin upon Himself so that I might have eternal life with You. I believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, He lived a sinless life, He was crucified on the cross and He was buried for 3 days, and He rose again and defeated death.
I know that I can bring nothing to this except my heart of surrender. I cannot buy or earn salvation, but that it is a free gift. I need that gift of salvation today, God. I accept the payment that Jesus made on my behalf to pay for my sin debt, and I choose to make Jesus Lord of my life. I surrender, and submit my own will and desires to You. Please make me Your child, Father God. Please put Your Holy Spirit within me, and lead and direct me all the days of my life.
Help me to fall madly in love with You, Jesus, and allow me to be a vessel for Your kingdom to teach others about You.
In Jesus’ Name I Pray, Amen.
Where's Jesus? 