Are you tired of your life? Is it just the same monotonous repetitions, over and over again, day after day? Every day you go to work, come home tired to the same house, with the same family driving the same piece of junk car. It seems the only pleasure you find these days is a good movie, a bottle of beer, a twinkie and a cigarette. Perhaps the occasional get-together with friends... But at the end of the day, it's all just vanity. It all seems dark and empty. Life doesn't seem worth while. There seems to be no meaning to life. You have a hope that one day it will get better, but in the mean time, it sure is lonely. Maybe one day, you think, you'll win the lottery or meet that one person that will love you for who you are. Or perhaps you'll wait for the kids to grow up and get out of the house, then things will be easier. You'll retire and sit on the beach somewhere warm, and drink margaritas. Then you think... Well how long will that be fun? A couple of days at the most and then boredom will set in again. What then... Oh well, things will turn out... Maybe...
The problem is, things never seem to get better. You seek for pleasure, but it never truly satisfies. It is fun for the moment, but it's never lasts. You feel like a fly running into a window over and over again, trying in vain to escape but never finding the door. Life's not turning out the way you thought it would. Instead of things getting better, it just gets more dreary. The kids won't behave, spouse is always dissatisfied... What to do? You have nowhere to run. You're stuck with no way out.
To add to the problem, all the guilt that comes from the life you've led, is adding to your misery. You long for the days of your youth when you were innocent and carefree. You didn't have all this guilt weighing on your conscience. All the things you've done, when nobody was watching... The secret thoughts you've had... The lust that has consumed your mind since you were a teenager... If people knew your secret thoughts and deeds, you would be so ashamed you would move far away and never come back. If your spouse knew the thoughts and the things you have done behind her back...
You tried religion, but it didn't get rid of the guilt. You even got baptized when you were young but nothing changed. You went up for an alter call when the minister preached an emotion filled message and made a resolution that you were going to try hard to be good. Nothing changed. You don't know where to turn next...
Well, I have some good news for you. Religion is not the way to God. Better news is, you have been going through life carrying this burden of guilt needlessly. The great news is that God has made full provision for the removal of that burden as well as a brand new life. The price for the guilt and sin you carry, has already been taken care of over 2000 years ago!
Let's back up and look at the big picture for a moment. The reason you are here is because God wanted a family of His own and so He created us humans and placed us in charge over this whole earth. He created us to walk in fellowship with Him, relating to him by faith. Faith is the foundation of every relationship. God created us to be incomplete without this relationship of faith in Him. The problem is the whole human race, one by one turns their back on Him and lives selfishly as though He were not there. Living selfishly just for ourselves, with a disregard for God and for the needs of our fellow man, is the essence if sin. The moral law of the universe requires that there must be payment for this transgression. The payment that the law requires, is blood. That is how serious sin is.
So here is the predicament... You have lied. You have lusted and committed adultery. You have stolen. You have gotten drunk a lot. A just and holy God cannot allow liars, fornicators, adulterers, thieves and drunkards into His heaven. That would be incredibly unjust. Somebody must pay. If someone murdered a child and appeared before the judge, and the judge said, "Seeing how sorry you are, you can go free"... How unfair would that be? So God has got a serious dilemma here. It looks like He will have to send the whole human race to Hell's debtor prison for eternity. He can't let them into heaven. So what does He do? He shows His great love to the world, in that He sends His own Son Jesus, to this earth to live in a body just like ours. As eternal God He couldn't die, so He had to become a man like us. Jesus did that. He lived sinless. He lived perfect. He healed the sick and cast demons out of the possessed. He had mercy on the prostitutes and publicans and common folk, always making time for the children. He had harsh, damning words for the religious hypocrites, but forgiving, loving words for the ungodly sinner. He came so that the world through Him might be saved. He was nailed to a cross where God made Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be sin for us. He lumped all the sin of the entire world, and placed it on Jesus! God poured out His wrath on His own Son because He chose to view Him as if He were all the sinners in the world. Jesus paid the price so you didn't have to! His righteous blood was poured out on the ground so that God could now justly forgive you if you will believe, turn to Him and believe this good news. Jesus didn't stay dead though. On the third day He rose from the dead and appeared to over 500 people, and then ascended to heaven to take His rightful seat at God's right hand. Now, every time a sinner acknowledges his sin and Christ's work on the cross, (that it was sufficient), turns to God with all His heart and thanks Him for letting Jesus become the sinner in his place, God forgives him and clothes him with Christ's perfect, spotless robe of righteousness. The Holy Spirit then takes that sinner and places him as part of Christ's body, so that his identity is now inseparable from Christ's, freeing him from the power of sin and allowing him to take part in all that is Christ's. Eternal life is now a sure thing! A brand new life seated at the right hand of God, is the new reality! A real inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, waiting for you! A literal kingdom that we will inherit with Jesus! With our own literal mansion. A place where we won't have to lock our doors at night. A place where there will never again be war and violence. A place where we won't fear loosing our jobs. (because we won't have one, we'll never need to work again). A place where there will be no more death, sickness or disease. A place of love, joy and peace with no more tears or misery. It will be a real place, a literal place with animals and trees, wonderful new colours,... A paradise. A place where we will forever be with Jesus.
If you have put your trust in Jesus and believed this good news, you are a new creature with a brand new life seated at the right hand of God. Your life will be changed forever. You have a lively hope that brightens every day. Most of all, you have a relationship with your heavenly Father and you'll never be lonely again.
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