God loves you and wants to bless you. But you cannot receive His blessings properly due to the following facts:
1.God Created the Universe and Man
In the beginning, God created the universe and everything in it. Lastly, He created man to look after and rule over His creation in His behalf. So, God created man and woman in His image and blessed them. God wants them to have good relation with Him and glorify Him as their Creator, God and Father.
2.Sin Separate Man from God
But man disobeyed God and acted in their own will. This disobedience of God’s command is called ‘sin’ in the Bible. God became angry and banished man from His presence. (Read Genesis 1, 2 & 3)Thus, no man can receive the blessing of God properly as sin has broken their relationship with God since all men are their descendants.
How can understand ‘sin’ is in you?
You may be a good person, have good moral life and do many good things. But, consider your heart. You may hate some person, envy, angry at trifle, want to destroy others feelings or properties, look lustfully some person. You may do good works, but your intention may often be to gain good name, good position, profit and not to glorify God but glorify yourself. This is against the will of God, since He created us to glorify Him. This ‘sin’ in you invites the wrath of God. In His wrath, God condemned, cursed and sent out Adam and Eve from His presence in Eden garden. Living away from the Creator, the Giver of Life means ‘dead’. As such, God’s word, the Bible declares:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
“There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10)
“For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23a)
Thus, we all men and women in the world are spiritually dead. Therefore, no one of us can receive the true blessing of God as we have the right in the beginning of creation. To receive the true blessing of God, we must have a new relationship with Him.
3.God’s Plan of Salvation
God is Love (1 John 1:8). He does not want His created people to die in sin forever. He, therefore, made a plan to save us from sin and condemnation. By following His plan, one can have a new relationship with God and receive His blessing abundantly.
God’s plan may be summed up below:
1.God Send Jesus to Save the World
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
‘the world’ here means ‘all people in the world’. ‘Son’ here refers to ‘Jesus Christ’. “should not perish but have everlasting life” is the result of ‘saved from sin and its consequences’.
God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to save all who believes in Him that they ‘should not perish but have everlasting life’.
Jesus came as man more than two thousand years ago. He lived a sinless life and taught the Good News of Salvation through Him. He died on the cross in our place. But God raised Him from the dead and was taken up to heaven. God seated Him in His right side and has given Him ‘all authority on earth and in heaven’.
In His authority, Jesus “gave the right to become children of God’ to all who believe in His name. (John 1:12)
2.God’s Remedy for Sin
Jesus Christ has completed the work in God’s plan of Salvation when He died and in His resurrection. God wants us to believe and receive Jesus Christ so that we may become His children and have eternal life. The Bible says,
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ( Romans 6:23)
If you received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, you become God’s child and will have eternal life.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12)
The Disciples of Jesus, the Apostles continued the work of Jesus Christ and proclaimed the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul tells us this when he says,“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” ( 1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
3.God Calls Us to Receive Christ
Jesus is calling you, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to Him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20)
The Bible also says, “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
Response to the call of Jesus Christ. Open the door of your heart. Admit and confess that you are a sinner to die and be condemned without Him. Ask Him to forgive your sin and save you.
Thank Him for He died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sin and was raised for your justification.
Invite Him to take His throne in your heart as your Lord and Saviour. Ask Him to control and direct your life.
Pray this prayer,
“Lord, I am a sinner and to die in condemnation without You. Forgive me and save me from my sin. I thank You for the dead you die on the cross for the forgiveness of my sin. I praise Your Holy name for You have rouse again from the dead to give me justification.
Now, I invite You to enter my life and take Your throne in my heart as my Lord and Saviour. I surrender my life and everything in Your hand. Control and direct my life at Your will. In Your Holy name I pray, Amen.”
If you confess and pray this prayer earnestly and have full faith in Jesus Christ, in the authority of the Bible, you become God’s child and have eternal life in Jesus Christ. You will live with Christ eternally in heaven.
4.Assurance of God
It is not me or your Pastor that give you assurance that you become saved and have eternal life in Christ. It is God’s word, the Bible that assured us –
“ That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come to judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24)
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of god.” ( 1 John 5:13)
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:31)
Now, as you have seen, Jesus Christ has made you God’s child by restoring your relationship with God. You become a new creation in Christ. You have New Life in Christ. You become ‘saved’. God has forgiven your sin. You are ‘born-again’ spiritually now.
If you have not yet been Baptist, ask your Pastor to Baptist you, to mark your faith in Jesus Christ and that you died with Him and God has raised you with Christ in His resurrection.
Start living a new life in Christ. Study the Bible daily and pray continually. Study a good guide to grow in faith. You may study ‘A Good Guide for Living Life in Christ’ I have prepared.
May God bless you..
In Christ Jesus.
By- L.K. Hengna,24th July, 2014
