Who is this God that we are talking about? And who is Jesus?

If we are the Church of "God" then it must be important to understand who God is, and what our relationship is with Him. And we also need to look and see how Jesus fits into the picture.

I will give you a quick overview to help you understand, but I would highly encourage you to read from your Bible the "Gospel of John." This is the fourth book in the New Testament and is John's account of the life of Jesus Christ.

In the beginning of time, God created man to have fellowship with Him, but He also created man to be a free, moral agent.  In other words, God did not create man to be a robot but gave him the ability to make choices.  At a certain point in a man's relationship with God, man decided to exercise his free choice, and when he did he walked away from God, creating a deep division between God and man.  

This deep division between God and man was caused by man's sin.  Sin is man's rebellion against God and rejecting God's standard for life.  If man continues in his sin, rebelling against God, he will ultimately face death.

Man has been trying to bridge this gap between himself and God on his own.  Anything that man tries on his own is self effort.  Good deeds, religion, even good living can't bridge this gap.  Self effort falls short of bringing man back into a relationship with God.  

God has a remedy for man's predicament.  In Romans 5:8 the Bible says God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to bridge the gap between God and man.

The question is, "How can man get back to God through Jesus?"  The Bible tells us in John 1:12 that there are two things we must do through Jesus Christ in order to bridge this gap.  The first thing we must do is believe.  We must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died on the cross for our sins, and if we ask Him, He will forgive us of our sins.  The second thing the Bible tells us is that we must receive.  It isn't good enough for us to believe, we must pray and ask Jesus to come into our life and be the savior and leader of our life.  When we pray for Christ to come into our life, our life begins to change.  We experience God's love.  We know we are loved because Jesus is the expression of God's love to us.  Our life takes on a whole new purpose, and that purpose gives our life meaning.

What about the sin and death that man is faced with?  The good news is that because of Jesus death on the cross and our trusting in Christ, God forgives our sins and gives us the promise of Eternal Life.