Step 5

    08.20.18 |

    GOD LOVES THE WORLD AND HE WANTS TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS.

    Romans 6:23 (NKJV)
    23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    1 John 4:10 (NLT)
    10  This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

     

    1 Peter 3:18 (NLT)
    18  Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

    John 3:17 (NIV)
    17  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

    A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped through his hometown at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there were no laws against speeding. So the council passed a law saying that 30 m.p.h. was the maximum speed, and that any transgressors would be fined $100 for every m.p.h. over the speed limit.

    On his way back through the town, the speedster decided to pull the same prank. He was apprehended, tried, and found guilty by his father, who was the town’s only judge. He was fined $9,000, and because he had no money and no words of defense, the youth was led off to prison. As he sat in despair behind bars, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all his own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn’t believe that he loved him that much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bonded together with love.

    That’s a picture of what God did for us through the gospel

    We have all broken God’s Law a multitude of times, but because He loves us, God came to this earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and paid the fine—

    2 Corinthians 5:19 (NKJV)
    19  …that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them….

    31  because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." Mark 9:31 (NIV)

    31  Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.
    32  God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.    Acts 2:31-32 (NIV)

    2  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.         1 John 2:2 (NIV)

    8  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—                             Ephesians 2:8 (NIV)

    Jesus satisfied eternal justice, and then rose from the dead, defeating death. Hundreds saw Him after His resurrection; it’s no fairy tale. Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies about the promised Savior, written in the Holy Scriptures hundreds of years before His birth. But just as we cannot earn a gift, so we cannot earn eternal life by our good works.