God. There is one God, the God of the Bible, who is displayed in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has always existed and always will exist. He is infinitely good, sovereign, and perfect. The very first thing you must believe is that the God of the Bible is the only God and there are no others beside Him. Hebrew 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Man. God, who has always existed, created humankind in His own image. He didn't create them because He was lonely or had a need for them - the Father, Son, and Spirit were completely happy in the fellowship of each other. He created them because He is love and because from the very beginning He had an incredible plan to show His glory and love to them for eternity future. He created two people - Adam and Eve, and placed them in a perfect garden, with no disease, sorrow, sin, and death. They could fellowship with God because they were sinless. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Sin. When God created humans, he gave them the capacity to choose to obey or disobey Him. He had given Adam and Eve every tree in the garden to eat fruit from, except one. They chose to disobey Him and eat from that tree, and since then every single human being in all of time has been born with a sin nature - a spirit that naturally and automatically hates God and disobeys Him. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Death. Because God is perfect, He cannot let sin go unpunished. He is a good judge, and a good judge does not let criminals go free. It doesn't matter if their good outweighs their bad - they only have to commit one crime to be punished. God told Adam and Eve that the punishment for their disobedience was death. By death, He did not just mean a physical death, although that is also a consequence. He meant that they would be separated from God, unable to come to Him. They would face eternal condemnation, a punishment that never ends, even after physical death. Since we have all sinned, we are in this same condition. There is nothing we can do to get rid of our sin, so there is nothing we can do to avoid punishment. Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment
Christ. God loved His creation, even though they willfully chose to disobey and reject Him. He loves them so much that He made a way for them to escape punishment and be able to be with Him again. God the Son became a human being Himself - Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin supernaturally, and He lived a perfect life without any sin. Although we can't understand how, He was 100% God and 100% human. He came to earth to provide the one and only way to God and to heaven. John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Cross. Jesus Christ chose to take our punishment for us. To put it in human terms, he paid our bail. He died a terrible physical death on a Roman cross, but what's more, God the Father turned His back and chose to pour all of His anger and hatred and divine punishment on Jesus Christ, His own Son. Jesus did not deserve this death - He lived a perfect life. He stepped in our place and our sins were placed on Him by God the Father, and He was punished for them. It didn't end with His death, though - after 3 days in the tomb He came back to life to prove that the punishment was paid in full, completely finished, and death no longer had any power. 1 Peter 2:24 Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness––by whose stripes you were healed.
Faith. Now, we must put our faith in Him. We must reject all of our hope in anything else - our own goodness, other religions, etc. - we must hope only in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We must recognize that we are terrible sinners, destined for eternal judgment, with no hope of saving ourselves. Rejecting our sins, we must believe that God's grace and love is our only hope of salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.
Life. When we cast ourselves upon His grace and put our faith in Him to save us, He does. Immediately, God counts our sins as paid for through Jesus Christ, and applies Christ's perfect, sinless life to us. (This is called justification) Our hearts are made completely new - we no longer love sin, we love God. The Spirit of God regenerates our souls, and comes to live inside of us. He begins the process called sanctification - a life-long process of learning to stop doing the sins we once loved and start doing the good things that God loves. We don't do this to earn God's favor - He gave that to us freely. We do it because we love Him. We will never, ever lose our salvation when we are truly saved. We may sin and stray temporarily, but if we are truly saved, we have been adopted as God's children and He will always draw us back. As we grow in our relationship with Christ, we will put away our sin more and more. Eventually, we will die physically, but when we do we will go on to eternal life in heaven. Heaven is a place with no more sin, no more tears, pain, disease, unhappiness, or death. It is a place of eternal joy. John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
Now it's my turn to ask you the same question. Do you believe this? If all of your faith and hope are in this gospel, you are set free from sin and adopted by God! If you have any questions or thoughts, be sure to send me an email at daughteroftheKing303@gmail.com
GOd bless you
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