It is a great blessing to be a Christian. We has such a great joy and peace in our hearts because God has saved us from our sins; God has forgiven us of our sins and provided us with a relationship with Him so that whatever need we have we can always pray; we can always call upon His name and He is always ready, willing and able to hear us and answer us.
Yes, I know that this sounds surprising to many of you. It is true. Jesus said it and I believe it; Jesus said it and I have experienced it.
This is exactly what Jesus Christ our Lord said to all of us who believe in Him and put our faith and trust in Him:
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other” – John chapter 15.
Jesus said:
“I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.”
Jesus is our brother
Yes it is true. Not only are we friends with Jesus Christ but we are also His brothers and sisters.
Listen to what Jesus said about that:
“So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters” – Hebrews 2:11.
“Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they couldn’t get to him because of the crowd. Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to see you.”
Jesus replied, “My mother and my brothers are all those who hear God’s word and obey it” – Luke 8:19-21.
Yes it is wonderful. We have as Christians been born into the Kingdom of God by the Spirit of God. God gave us His Spirit, He gave us a little bit of Himself and placed it inside our bodies. And His Spirit inside of us made us alive to Himself and we became alive to God and what He wants us to do. We are His children.
The Bible says:
“For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you” – Galatians 3.
In the Book of Romans it says:
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering” – Romans chapter 15.
And in John’s first letter to the Christians we read:
“Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is” – 1 John 3:2.
Fear comes from feeling guilty
We do not have to be afraid anymore. God is not like a mean judge who is standing or sitting in heaven just waiting to smash us to pieces with a hammer because we failed to follow all His laws. No one can follow all of God’s Laws. We can follow some of them but not all of them.
As Christians our sins have been forgiven. Some people try to follow God’s laws – each and every one of them – and they think that they can earn they way into heaven but what it is they do. We get into heaven because of what Jesus did.
Let’s listen to what Jesus told the people they had to do in order to go to heaven:
“The next day the crowd that had stayed on the far shore saw that the disciples had taken the only boat, and they realized Jesus had not gone with them. Several boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the Lord had blessed the bread and the people had eaten. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him. They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”
They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”
Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”
They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”
Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again.
Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”
Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. How can he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
But Jesus replied, “Stop complaining about what I said. For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. (Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only I, who was sent from God, have seen him.)
“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life. Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
Jesus can give you eternal life
You don’t have to earn eternal life: Jesus wants to give you eternal life. You see, if you think you can buy eternal life with all the good works you do, you are mistaken. Eternal life is a free gift from God to us; and the way we receive this eternal life is if we ask God for it and if we put our faith in and believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.
God’s Word says:
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” – Ephesians chapter 2.
Jesus is the gift of God. Jesus is our peace and our salvation. No other name has been given to men under heaven by which they should be saved except the name of Jesus. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the great I am; Jesus is the wonderful counsellor, prince of peace, everlasting father. He is the one who can save you from your sins.
If you want to go to heaven; if you want to have your sins forgiven, then pray this prayer with me and you will be able to feel your sins disappear and know and feel that God loves you and is with you forever:
“Dear Lord. I pray that you would come into my life and forgive me off the sins that I have ever committed. I am sorry for not doing the things you wanted me to do, and sorry for the things I did which you did not want me to do. I am sorry I hurt other people with my sins. Will you please forgive me Lord? Will you please forgive me for sinning against you? I know that I could never earn my way into heaven and I feel dirty and unclean. Wash me God and make me clean. I want to feel clean and know in my heart that I am saved. Thank you Lord, in Jesus name.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins; He rose from the dead and went up into heaven where He is sitting right now at the right hand of God praying for us. Jesus is the one who shed His blood for us. Put your faith in Him and you will be saved. Amen.