Everything that God has given to us has been free. Think about it. He has given us life, a place to live, things to enjoy, etc. What have we given to God to receive all these things? Nothing! God created us and gave us all these gifts because He simply wanted someone with whom to share His love.

Sure, mankind has really messed things up. We overcharge each other for things. We demand that others do everything our own way. In fact, we have brought a great many evils into this world.

But God has nothing to do with this. He created each of us with a free will (so we could really share love with Him) and we have misused that free will. But we need to concentrate on what God did for us, not what mankind has tried to change.

AS REBELLIOUS AS WE ARE, GOD STILL LOVES US

Remember what the Bible says in Romans 5:8 (NIV): “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” You see, God did not wait for us to come to Him. He did not wait for us to tell Him that we loved Him. No! He took the first step and reached out to us.

HOW GOD REACHED OUT TO US

Exactly how God reached out to us is found in Ephesians 2:8 (NIV) where it says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Yes! The key to salvation is grace.
What does “grace” mean? It comes from a Greek word that means “to rejoice, be glad, be delighted.” Thus, grace has its foundation in joy. Whose joy? God’s joy. Even though we have rebelled against Him, God still has joy in His creation. He still delights in us and wants to share His love with us.

Thus, grace means “giving out of the joy of one’s own heart, and not because the one who received it, deserves it. God freely gave salvation to us because He loves us and not because we deserve it. And the greatest truth in this is that we can freely receive this salvation because God freely gives it to us. But many do not receive it because of their pride.

OUR GREATEST PROBLEM IS PRIDE

We are being destroyed because of our pride. We want recognition for everything we do, We want to be sure that others know what we did. We seem to think that we are better than anyone else. We want people to look up to us.
We even go so far as to think that we know what is best for us. We really don’t need God because we know as much (or even more) than He does. This has led many to even declare that God does not even exist.

But many who do acknowledge that God does exist still believe that they really don’t need Him because they know all they need to know about living. Thus, our pride keeps us from receiving the great gift that God offers us.

ARE WE SAVED THROUGH OUR WORKS?

Many people do acknowledge that this is God’s world and thus we must live good lives in order to live with Him forever in His heaven. However, these people also believe that they already know what they must do to live good lives. Thus, they conclude that all they have to do is to do enough good works and they will have lived a good enough life to get into heaven.

In other words, our pride dictates that we must earn our way into heaven. In other words, we can live in heaven only if we live a good enough life and thus, earn our way into heaven.

It would be foolish if God said that must earn our way into heaven. Because if this were the case, we would be able to say “Look what I did for myself.” “I saved myself.” It would just add to our pride. It would just create more pride and dependence on ourself instead of on God.

If this were true, what would heaven be like? What if heaven were full of all the proud people that our now making our lives miserable? It certainly would not heaven. In fact, it would be no different than the life we are living now.

No. God wants something much better for his children. He wants the best existence possible for us. Remember, He created us. He knows what is best for His creation. He knows what we need in order to receive the best that He has to offer.

GOD’S SOLUTION

Remember, God created us so that we could share our love with Him and have fellowship with Him. He created us as free creatures. He cannot and will not force us to do anything or to be anything that we do not want to do or be. This would destroy our free will and without free will, we would not be able to share love.

So God has decreed that only those who want to live according to His will can live eternally with Him in His heaven. Yet, living in this sin-filled world, it is extremely difficult to show God that we want to live according to His will.
Thus, in His great love, God made it extremely easy for us to show Him that we want to live according to His will. This truth is revealed in John 3:16 (NKJV) where it says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

This is all we have to do. Accept the salvation that He offers to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. It is God’s gift to us. We don’t have to do anything except accept His great gift of salvation. But to receive it, we must reach out and accept it.

GIFTS MUST BE RECEIVED

Think about it. If I offer to give you a present, yet you do not reach out and receive it, that is, take it yourself, you will never benefit from the gift I have for you. That is the way it is with God’s gift of salvation. He offers it. But, we have to take a definite step to receive it. We have to do something or it will never become ours.
God offers the gift of salvation to us and He has made it very simple to receive this great gift. We don’t have to do any great works, go through any special type of ritual, or anything like that. We don’t have to change anything in our life. We don’t even have to become a better person first. All we have to do is to be sorry for our rebellion and sin against God and want to start living for and with God.

It is actually accomplished in two very simple steps. The first is to simply accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. It is that simple. We just accept what Jesus did for us on the cross and accept His death as our own death to sin and rebellion.
Secondly, we accept Jesus as the Lord of our Life. This means committing our life to live as Jesus wants us to live. It doesn’t mean that we will live perfect lives. It just means that we are going to do our best to live the life that Jesus wants us to live.

If you have not yet taken this very important and essential step, go to How To Live Forever and learn what you need to do.

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Most precious gift offered and given freely, to whomsoever will repent, come and confess and accept it, willing. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whomsoever believeth on Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

Thanks be to God for His love for us, by sending Jesus, to be our Lord and Savior.
The Light of the world, who's light never dims, instead dispels all darkness. Only through Jesus, we can be reconciled unto God the Father.

Jesus, the Son of the Living One and Only True God, the second person, in the Holy Trinity, is the door to Heaven. Open that door today, and accept Jesus, as your Lord and Savior; for He is the ONLY WAY, to Heaven, there is no other.

Maranatha!

Valerie