do You Know Jesus?

 This message is primarily for those who do not yet have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. I'm not a pastor or preacher but I can share with you a few things that might help you to come to know God for yourself.

/Do you know him?
To some he is a prophet,
A messenger from god.
To some he was a teacher
Who told people how to live the right way.

to some he was a good man
but perhaps a bit misguided,
To some he's just a phony,
A figment of imagination.

to me he is my lord,
the holy, sinless son of God
Who willingly gave his life for me
as a sacrifice for my sin.

And not for me alone,
 He took the punishment for all our sins,
Yet he holds his nail-pierced hands out
To each one who will come.

He is the shepherd who leads me on
And guides me through this life,
He is the master whom I serve
And desire to honour and please.

his love for us is strong and lasting,
he won't turn and walk away from us,
He doesn't reject us when we do wrong,
His promises are sure.

He's my Jesus, god's own son,
I love him, I praise him,
I  honour and worship him
I love him and give him my life.

do you know him? Do you see
the truth about who Jesus is?
If you want to know him he is there
all you have to do is call out to him.

There is so much that can be said about Jesus and all that he has done for us, as the bible says
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books
that would be written.
[John 21:25, ESV]
I'm just going to share a few thoughts with you.

you might think "I don't need God I'm doing ok, I'm a better person than some people I know."  Well picture this scene with me.

You are in a class who has just taken an important exam. Most of the class scored between 55 and 65, although a few have done worse than that,  so you are quite pleased with your score of 60. That is until you notice that one student has gotten  full marks. compared with that student you don't feel quite so happy about your score of 60. You feel rather discouraged because you know that no matter how hard you study and no matter what you do you will never get a score of 100.

When we compare ourselves with others we can get complacent. After all, we're not such bad people, we're better than some, we don't murder or cheat on our spouses or  steal, we're ok with how our lives are going. Yet compared to Jesus who is completely perfect, has never sinned, never lied, never gossiped, never hurt anyone, compared to him we're not doing as well as we thought we were. In reality, though we may try to be good people and do what we think is right, we fall woefully short of God's standard, as the bible says:
 Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard,  and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They need
to be made free from sin through Jesus Christ.
[Romans 6:23-24]
or, to put it more bluntly:
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins
sweep us away.
[Isaiah 64:6]

So,   gods standard is absolute perfection and none of us are able to make that standard no matter how hard we try. You might hear that and feel discouraged; after all, noone but Jesus is perfect so what hope do we have? The hope we have is that Jesus died on the cross for us. He took all our sins on himself, from the least unkind word to the most hideous depraved act you can imagine. Then God poured out all his wrath and anger on Jesus for the sins which we have committed.  He gave up his life for a short time so that he could save us. The bible says:

 Christ carried our sins in his body on the cross so we would stop living for sin and start living for what is right. And you are healed because of his
wounds. 
[1 Peter 2:24 NCV]

We all know, if we really look at ourselves, that we are far from being perfect. Our lives are full of bad habits, mistakes, things we knew were wrong but chose to do anyway, things that we know we should have done but didn't do. We have hurt our loved ones, we have said unkind things, we have gossiped and many other things that show that we are sinners. I am not saying this to condemn anyone, what I said is true of the whole human race. We need help. We need someone to change us from the inside out and make us better people and that is just one of the things that Jesus does for us.

The question is, do you believe it? Are you willing to let God come into your life and change you?  If you haven't yet asked Jesus to be your saviour and given your life to God I'm going to give you some guidelines and a simple prayer you may choose to pray but before i do that I want to talk for a moment about what is known as the "sinner's prayer".

When I was young and only fairly new in my faith I thought I  had to repeat the sinner's prayer often to be sure that I was saved. I belonged to a Christian youth group and now and then we went to a Church service where they had an altar call and every time I put my hand up and went forward because I felt that was something I needed to do.

The Sinner's Prayer is not like a lucky charm or something that you have to repeat often to make sure you're safe. If you pray once and truly mean it then you are saved, but you must keep close to God and study his word and live this Christian life. If you truly want to ask  the Lord Jesus into your life, you have to pray with sincerity, realising that you are a sinner, someone who can never meet God's standard of perfection,  someone who has thought, said and done things which are wrong and which god does not approve of, and that you need the salvation that God freely gives those who believe in him and accept him, being willing to let God come into your heart and change you from the inside out.  Whatever words you use have no power in and of themselves if you aren't genuine about what you are saying.

Now, let me give you some guidelines on how you can pray for salvation but again remember it has to be genuine. Remember that God knows your heart, he knows you even better than you do and he's waiting for you to turn to him.

1. come to God in prayer remembering that he is the God who made all things, who made you, and who loves you.
2. Confess your sins to god, talk to him about the wrong things you have done and the things you should have done but didn't.
3. Acknowledge that Jesus has already paid the price for your sins.
4. Ask Jesus to come into your heart as your Lord and saviour.
5. Give the authority over your life to God, let him be your boss, let him have the controls.
6. thank him for saving you and for all that he has done for you.

I advise you to pray in your own words, you can talk to God just like you would talk to a loving parent or a good friend, you don't have to use a formula or words that others have written. If on the other hand you feel uncertain or uncomfortable about praying you might like to use these words of mine or find another prayer on the net that you like and pray that.

Dear god, I know that you are the creator of all things. you made me and  you know me. I know that your standard is perfection and that i have fallen so far short of that standard. I have sinned against you in many many ways [tell God about what you have done wrong] and I'm sorry for what I have done. Please forgive me for my sins and have mercy on me. 
Jesus I ask you to come into my heart and be my saviour and Lord.  I know that it is because of your death on the cross and your resurrection that I am able to be saved and have a relationship with you. I give myself and all that I have to you, my whole life, past present and future. Please have your way in me and change me to become more like you. Please take the controls of my life and help me to know what you want me to do and help me to make right choices in my life. I thank you for all that you have done for me, I thank you for saving me and for giving me your holy spirit. I give you all the praise and all the glory dear god, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
If you prayed a prayer like that with true sincerity then you are now a child of God, now a member of his family. God's Holy spirit is living in you and you have access to God at any time. you don't need to be afraid of death anymore, if you continue on in your faith till the end then when you die you will be with Jesus. 

You might say to me "Well I accepted Christ as my saviour so what's my next step?" I have a couple of recommendations for you:

1. get a bible or find one online. this is vital for anyone who wants to live the Christian life. the bible is god's word and it is powerful. There are some bible sites at
www.biblegateway.com
and
http://bible.crosswalk.com
as well as others. The bible teaches us about who God is and all that he has done for us, as well as telling us how we should live.
2. Find a church near you and start attending regularly. We can't make it through this Christian life alone, we need each other. we also need to be taught from god's word things that will help us in our Christian walk.  Also, if you are a new believer let someone in your Church know about it, they may have resources to get you started and they may have a group for new believers where you will be taught the basics of Christianity.
3. Take some time every single day to pray to God and read the bible. Pray before you read that god will teach you and reveal himself to you as you read and reflect on what the bible says. Start in the New Testament. Although of course all of the bible is important and there are truths in every verse that can help us, I think the New Testament is a good place to start for a new believer.  If you read something you don't understand, ask god to help you understand it.
4. If you have a Christian friend, co-worker, neighbour or family member, tell them that you are  now a Christian. maybe it would be good to meet them and study the bible together. I had a friend who did that with me and it helped me a lot.
5. Keep going, don't turn back no matter how hard it gets. The bible says:
 We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should
remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back.  Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith
and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And
now he is sitting at the right side of God's throne.  Think about Jesus' example. He held on while wicked people were doing evil things to him. So do
not get tired and stop trying.
[Hebrews 12:1-3]

Well I hope that this has been helpful to someone. I really hesitated to put this message here because as I said there are  many others who are far better qualified than me to give a message about sin and salvation but  I felt that I should put this message here in case someone not yet saved reads it. If you are a new Christian there are lots of resources on and offline that can help you in your Christian walk.

God bless you and thanks for reading. have a wonderful day.