Get Real

Could God Ever Forgive Me?

     Yes, yes, yes! Thankfully there is nothing too big, no person too bad for God to forgive.  To carry around guilt of wrongdoing, whether it’s a lifetime of guilt, or guilt from something you did wrong last week is like walking through life with a ball and chain around your ankle.  The harshness of the guilt wears on you, slows you down in life, and interrupts everything you do.  Before long, your legs are bloodied and bruised, and life looks grim and without hope.  Forgiveness is the key and God holds it out to you because he loves you.

    

     It’s hard to imagine a God that is said to be “out there” somewhere being able to love us personally.  But he does; he cares about us. That is why he sent his son Jesus to die for all of our sins.  He longs to forgive us and remove the shackles and chains called sin from around our ankles.  The Bible says that, “Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”[1]  Additionally, look at this promise, "I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the Law of Moses.[2]

    

     You can be forgiven, but you must apologize to the One to whom you have wronged—that is, God.  Sin makes us miserable; God’s forgiveness makes us free.  Sin will ultimately take the “unforgiven’s” life one day and keep him or her in darkness (Hell) for eternity; God’s forgiveness gives every person light to live eternally without fear.  Sin is what Jesus died for; ask for God’s forgiveness today.

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[1] Acts 10:42-43

[2] Acts 13:38-39

Why Am I Here On Earth?

In other words, why are we even born if we are only to die some seventy or eighty years later?  Isn’t there more to life than to say, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die?”  Probably not if you believe the earth was created from a “Big Bang,” that man evolved from amebas millions of years ago, or that there is no Creator.  Science is even discovering the universe is getting old, that it’s dying—just like man, it’s not going to last forever.  Something makes us wonder, “Why am I here?”  That something is God.

In the beginning God created the heavens, the earth, the humans, and the amebas.  The Bible tells us that God specifically created man and woman in his image and that he desired to have “fellowship” (companionship or friendship) with his creation.  He “blessed them” and gave them “rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”[1] We are here to tend the earth.  We are also here for God’s pleasure, which ends up being pleasurable for us—if we know him personally.

There is more to just living and dying.  Each person is born in God’s image, which is personable, able to love, to laugh, to feel, and to think.  “He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”[2]  What is repentance and why do we need it?  When the first man Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone.[3] Without recognizing that we inherited that sin status and trusting that God made a way through Jesus Christ to change our status through repentance, we can never have a relationship with God; for he is holy and we are and sinful.  We are here on earth to honor God, to know God, and to share the benefits of this experience with others while on earth so we can ultimately spend eternity in a place called Heaven.  We can only do that if we know Jesus as Savior.

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1 Genesis 1:1-28 NIV

2 2 Peter 3:9b NLT

3 Romans 5:12 NLT