Have you believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Dear friend,

We have some very important questions we want you to consider because we care about you deeply. They may be the most important questions you will ever ask yourself. We would like you to consider what it is you believe regarding Jesus Christ. What you believe about Him matters…your eternal destiny depends on it. If you have never considered who Jesus Christ is and why He matters, we pray that you will take the time today.

Dear friend….have you believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins?

Whether you’ve been in “church” your whole life, you’ve been a “Christian” your whole life, you were baptized as an infant or you consider yourself to be a “good person” we want you to take a few minutes to consider the following. Your eternity is not based on what you have done, who you are or how you were brought up but on what you believe concerning Jesus Christ. Beloved, 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ came from heaven, took on flesh and died a sacrificial death on the cross. We can’t just ignore that. God demands that we do something about Christ. We have two options: believe that He came to earth to die for our sins or reject it. We want to explain to you that you must make a decision about what you believe. Believing Jesus was just a “good man” or “not wanting to deal with this right now” are not neutral positions. That is called unbelief and we need to show you what happens when you don’t believe in Christ.

The Bible says that we are “saved by grace through faith and not by works lest any man should boast”. Ephesians 2:8

What God is saying is that we need to be saved. We need to be saved and we are only saved by God’s grace. First of all you ask…what are we being saved from? We are being saved from the wrath of God. God hates sin and He has declared that all sin will be punished by death…physical death, spiritual death and eternal death. We need to be saved (rescued) from God. God loves us and He does not want anyone to perish eternally because of their sin. He wants us to realize that we have sinned against Him, we are alienated from Him and that we need to turn to Him for the forgiveness of our sins. But first we must recognize that we are sinners.

God is holy, righteous, merciful and just. He has declared that He hates sin. Sin is primarily an offense against God. It is doing what is wrong (commission), as well as not doing what is right (omission). All of God's instructions are His laws, and transgression against any of them (whether in thought or deed) are sins against God.

The Bible says we have all sinned against God. I’m sure that we are all honest enough to admit that we have all broken Gods laws at one time or another. By our nature we are disobedient. It is not our nature to obey God. It is our nature to disobey Him. Our sins are against God Himself and the Bible says that because of our sins we are alienated from God. We are actually enemies of God. The Bible puts it even more emphatically…it says we are “dead in our trespasses and sins”. Because of this we cannot be with God. We need to be perfect…sinless…holy…to enter His presence. There is nothing we can do to fix this problem of sin and alienation from God. Clearly it would take a miracle. But God has provided a miracle! God has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him through His amazing grace spoken of in Ephesians 2:8.

God comes after us, mercy seeks us, love finds us. Apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead and alienated from God. We are face down in a pool of water dead in our trespasses and sins. But then God comes and rescues us! He grabs us up and breathes His life into us. If God does not save us we will remain face down in that pool of water…dead. You see a dead man can’t save himself…he needs a Savior. Jesus said “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3 Without Christ, we are spiritually dead…we must be born again, not physically, but spiritually…and only God can give us that rebirth through Christ.

The bible says that God loves us. “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 God continues…“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:17 And finally…“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:18 Jesus said, “If you do not believe I am He you will die in your sins.” You see we are condemned by God already when we are in our sins and unbelief. You see that our outlook is grim. But praise God…He has not left us in our sorry condition. He says we can believe! Our belief removes the condemnation of God. If God says there is something we need to believe or else we are condemned…should we not listen?!

What must we believe? We must believe that we are alienated from God because of our sin and our only hope is to cast ourselves on Him for His mercy and forgiveness. We must believe our salvation rests on nothing else but Him. Salvation from sin is by the grace of God alone. The Bible says that God is our Savior…we can not save ourselves. You see God has provided one way for us to be saved…that one way is through Jesus Christ His Son. God said…“he who believes in Him is not condemned…whoever believes in Him should not perish”. John 3:18;16 We must believe that only Jesus Christ can bring us to God. Only He can give us eternal life. Jesus said..“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”John 14:6 Only Christ can bring us from death to life.

Why Jesus? Well let us explain. As we told you earlier, the Bible is very clear…without exception, every person ever born, except Jesus, has sinned against God. Therefore every person ever born, except for Jesus, needs to have their sins forgiven. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus is the only man that never sinned. (Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.)

God said He will pour out His wrath against sin. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23 The only thing that appeases God’s wrath against sin is an “atonement”. Atonement means the reconciliation of the guilty to God by a divine sacrifice. Jesus was our divine sacrifice. God requires a sinless blood sacrifice to atone for sin. Jesus was our sinless blood sacrifice, our substitutionary atonement. In Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus substituted Himself for sinners and paid the requirement of the punishment for sin which is death. As a result of Jesus’ atonement, our sin is transferred from us to Him, and God then grants us forgiveness. Jesus’ substitutionary atonement is the basis for our salvation. Jesus’ death on the cross satisfies the demands of God’s holy justice and appeases His holy wrath against sin. Through Christ’s atonement for sin we who believe are reconciled to God as Father and become His children. We are forgiven the debt of our sin and are now fully acceptable to God.

Only Jesus is able to offer Himself as a sacrifice to God. That is why Jesus came to earth as a man. He came so that He could die a substitutionary death and bear the wrath of God for our sins. He took our punishment upon Himself. Because of our belief (faith) that Jesus’ death was the satisfaction to God for our sins, God will then grant to our account the perfect righteousness of Jesus. We trust in what Jesus has done on the cross as our only basis for acceptance with God. We believe that we need the righteousness of Christ to be acceptable to God and without it we are without hope. We must apply Christ to ourselves. The Bible says “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 The Bible says “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. 1 Peter 3:18 We will never be perfect like Jesus in this life, but God will look upon us as if we were because we have believed in His only begotten Son. Salvation is the free gift of God. It is provided by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.

So friend do you believe you are a sinner? Do you believe you have broken God’s law? Do you believe that you have in your heart broken all the commandments and that you deserve punishment? Is there a burden that you now carry with you? Are you sorrowful for your sins against God and do you now repent of them? Do you believe you need a Savior? If you want saving, you cannot save yourself; can you trust Jesus Christ to save you? Do you look away from everything that is within you our without you to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins? Do you now trust His sufferings on Calvary and His whole atoning work as the ground of your acceptance before God?

Then cry out to God to save you. Get this straight today! Cry out to God to be merciful to you, a sinner. Cry out to God for His Holy Spirit. Only through the Holy Spirit will we come to see that we are sinners. God’s Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, the righteousness of God and His judgment of sin. The Holy Spirit enables us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13

We love the Lord and we care about you deeply. If you have any questions we would love to help you answer them. We have additional free resources that we would be more than happy to provide you with such as Bibles, Bible studies, sermons on CD, etc. Begin to study the bible yourself so that God’s word is planted in your heart. We would love nothing more than to personally sit down with you and discuss the blessings God has for you through Christ.

Take care and God bless!

contact us at onegodonegospel@comcast.net

If you do not have a church home we invite you to join us Sunday at 10:00 am for worship services at our church…Marimont Community Church 424 W. Walton ~ Pontiac, MI 48340 ~ 248-332-7239

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