WE ARE CREATED FOR RELATIONSHIP
You and I have been made for a relationship with God. The incredible truth is that God loves you and has gone to extraordinary lengths to invite you into that relationship. Yet, we may not be experiencing that relationship with God. The Bible gives us an insight into why there is distance between us and God. Scripture says,
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”.
Romans 3:23
The distance between us and God is the result of sin. But, what in the world is sin and does that really apply to us?
Sin is a word that means to miss the target. God has the target of true life out in front of us and sin is the word we use to describe when we drift from the God given trajectory to that target. Another way to say it is that sin is when we disobey God. We disobey by choosing to do what God instructs us not to do or we rebel by not doing what He tells us to do. Here is the big point: we all sin. There are no perfect people.
Unfortunately it is this sin that creates distance with God and brokenness and pain in our lives and the wider world.
The good news is that God’s love for us is relentless and He wouldn’t allow sin and our brokenness to keep us from Him. The Bible explains, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). God is a God who makes the first move toward us, even if we aren’t even thinking about Him. His love moved Him to send Jesus Christ (the Son of God) to die on the cross so that we might experience forgiveness and a way created for us to enter into a relationship with God. A popular Bible passage delivers this good news,
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
John 3:16
Thanks to Jesus we can have a relationship with God and experience new life with Him in this life and the next.
This is a gift of love offered from God to each one of us. The question is, will we embrace that gift? Again, the Bible gives some insight into entering into receiving that gift. It announces, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord (your King) and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:9,13).
The invitation is to experience new life with God through following Jesus. So how about you? What is your next step?
Maybe your next step is to explore more about Jesus and the life He offers. If so, we invite you to belong before you believe. Join us for one of our Sunday Gatherings.
Perhaps your next step is to talk to someone more about what it means to become a follower of Jesus. If so, let one of our team members know because we would love to connect with you.
Maybe you’ve been on this journey of discovery already and today you want to respond to God’s invitation. Just talk to God like you would talk to a friend who loves you. Tell Jesus that you want to follow Him and put your trust in Him to bring new life. Ask God to forgive you of sin. Invite the Spirit of God to come and live in you and guide you. If you reach out to say yes to this new relationship with God, tell someone and consider taking the step of baptism to signify and physically show what is happening spiritually in your life.
Please let us know if we can come alongside you in your journey of faith in any way.
May God bless you with the knowledge that you are deeply loved and the faith to reach out to Him.