Haldric.com

I thought I would write a short post on how to know God for yourself – this is for anyone who doesn’t yet have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

1st – Do you know that you have made mistakes in your life and have lived your life without God? –> God calls this “sin” and this is what seperates us from Him. The bible says it like this: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” –Romans 3:23 (NIV). God is perfect and has never sinned, and we learn in the bible that ultimately the punishment for sin is death – which is being cut off from God for eternity. “For the wages of sin is death.” –Romans 6:23 (NIV)

2nd - There is good news! John 3:16 says “for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” Jesus (God’s son) chose to die on a cross to take the punishment for all our sins. Then he rose again to conquer death once and for all, and to show that he really was the son of God.

3rd - YOU need to make a choice. To decide if you believe Jesus really is the son of God and really did die for your sins. If you’re not sure – perhaps go on an Alpha course or read the gospel of Mark or John in the bible (try a NIV or NLT version) to find out what God’s word says about Jesus. Then, if you want this gift of eternal life, you need to chose to ask for forgiveness from God for the sins you have committed, and chose to turn from them and try to walk God’s way (with God’s help of course). Welcome Jesus as Lord in your life and he’ll help you to do all this.

Here’s a prayer you can pray:

Father God, I am sorry for the things I have done wrong and for chosing to live my life apart from you. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for my sins and thank you that he rose again. I now choose to turn away from my sins and to live my life for you. I pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit to help me and guide me as I learn to live my life your way. Amen.

4th - Tell someone! It’s really important that you find another Christian to tell that you’ve made a choice to welcome Jesus into your heart. They can support you and help you find a friendly, welcoming church who pray, worship & teach the Word of God.  We can’t be Christians on our own – it’s not God’s plan

What next?

If you live near Swindon, come along to Gateway church & make sure you visit the welcome area at the end of the service! If not, do try to find a Jesus loving, bible teaching, spirit filled church who will help you in the next steps of your journey.

Pray. You’ve started with a prayer to ask God into your life, it’s not a one off prayer! God wants to have an ongoing relationship with you, so try to speak to him each day about anything and everything. Ask Him for help, thank him for all the good things in your life and generally start to build a realationship with your Father in heaven. If it’s hard – ask God to help you to pray!

Get hold of a modern translation of the bible too and start reading! Start with the New Testament – An NIV version is good, or try NLT which is a nice easy version to read. The Message is also very easy to read (although it’s not a proper word-for-word translation.) Check out my bible studies, to learn more about God, Jesus and all sorts of living God’s way type of topics!

Check out our friend Adam’s blog on Baptism too!

Ezekiel 18:32
I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

Sometimes people ask me why my so-called loving God would send someone to hell. This is such a hard question to deal with and usually I just don’t have a good enough answer. I wanted to think about this some more and explore it with you! I don’t have all the answers, but here are my thoughts! Feel free to share yours with me too

People say to me that they are a “good person” and why would God send a good person to hell? I think the first thing we need to tackle is people’s perception of what “good” means. In Alpha Nikki Gumble uses the image of a scale of good and bad which goes from floor to ceiling, floor being the ultimate bad, ceiling being the ultimate good, then he asks people to rate say Hitler, Mother Teresa and themselves. More often than not they put Hitler right near the bottom of the scale, mother Teresa near to the ceiling and themselves somewhere in the middle. I think that scale highlights that even though we may think we are good, we are not perfect because otherwise we would all put ourselves at the ceiling. Even mother Teresa was not perfect and on that scale the only person who would reach the ceiling (and beyond) is Jesus. We are not to compare ourselves to the world and the “average person,” we are to compare ourselves with the perfect life of Jesus. Then we will see that our “good” just isn’t good enough. God is perfect, being perfect and good and just, he cannot look on sin or accept it. That’s why he sent Jesus, so that when he looks on us, we are perfect in his sight because Jesus took our sins on the cross, exchanging his perfectness for our sin. Without Jesus in our lives we cannot enter heaven on our own merits.

The other thing I would like to talk about is this paradox – a loving God who lets people go to Hell… This is hard, but as I mentioned, God is just, he is fair, he can’t bend the rules. If he was a judge in a court of law and someone was found guilty of a crime, he couldn’t just go, well I like this person so I’m going to let him off… No! He would have to pass the right sentence, even if the person stood in front of him was his son, or he wouldn’t be a good, fair judge. (We would soon sack him for being biased and unjust wouldn’t we?) God never bends the rules for any of us, but loves each one of us the same, and so sent Jesus to take our penalty for us¹, to pay our spiritual fine, to do our stint in jail.

This verse in Ezekiel (and many other verses) speak to me of God’s anguish when people still choose death rather than to turn to him and live. He says time and time again that he takes no pleasure in seeing the death of people², whether they are “good” or even “wicked” he wants us all to turn from our wrong ways and to live³. It’s so simple – repent & live – This means to be sorry for what we have done wrong and to choose to turn around and not continue to walk in rebellion against God. He wants us to be free and living his way because that’s the best way we can live! He doesn’t want any of us to go to hell, and gives us all more opportunities than we deserve in order to prevent us from death. Yet he will not force us, we have free will to choose. And when we do choose, what a joy this brings Him to see someone saved from death and brought into life.⁴

So the real question is.. Why would anyone choose to go to hell, when we have been offered the gift of eternal life?

1) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

2) Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Ezekiel 18:23

3) The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

4) In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Luke 15:10