“Be God’s”

When contemporary Christian music artist Rich Mullins autographed a CD for a fan, he would write “Be God’s.” Deciding whether or not you believe in God and whether or not you want to get to know Him is the most important decision in your life. Your relationship to God will shape your attitudes and actions, influence every other decision you make, and determine your eternal future. Being a Christian is hard. It may mean giving up doing some things you like to do, things your friends think are okay to do. But knowing Christ in a personal relationship also means you have Someone Who will always be there for you, love you more than you can possibly understand. You can have joy and peace in your life and eternal life. Even though there are definitely rough times here on earth, you know that the best is yet to come in Heaven when you know Jesus. I used to love hearing one of our associate pastors, Rev. Paul Duckwall, pray. I loved hearing him pray because he would just talk to Jesus as a Friend. Jesus clearly is his friend, and now Rev. Duckwall is in Heaven with Jesus.

Christianity isn’t a religion. Religions seek to find a way for man to reach God. Christianity is different in that God came down to man with the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. God provided a way for us to be with Him through the death on the cross of His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.

So what does having a personal relationship with Jesus mean? It means for one thing spending time in prayer and Bible reading with Him. Anytime you want to get to know someone better what do you do? You spend time with them. It means, too, that we must admit that we need Jesus — that we cannot get through this life on our own and that we cannot get into Heaven either without Jesus.

The Bible says that we humans have messed up and messed up badly. It doesn’t matter if the only thing you did wrong is tell one little white lie, you have sinned. Maybe you took a cookie off the cookie plate after your mother told you not to, or you became really jealous of your neighbor’s new car. The sins don’t have to be murder or thievery. We have messed up. And yes, Christians mess up. I mess up every day of my life. But I pray for forgiveness and for God to help me do and be better, kinder, more loving and less selfish.

God is love. He loves us with a love that is amazing — much larger and stronger than any kind of human love. But He is also perfect and just. He cannot be with sinful man. He wanted to be with us though so He provided a way for that to happen.

If we come to Christ, admit that we have done wrong in our lives, admit that we need His mercy and help, and ask Him to be in our hearts and lives forever, He will. We can ask Him to forgive us of our sins, and He will. We need to be willing to do this and to ask Him to guide us and change us into the people He intended for us to be. Then we need to be open and willing to accept this change.

God has given us free will. It is our choice to accept Him or not. If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to get to know Him personally, then simply tell Him that you realize you need Him in your life. Ask for His forgiveness and accept His gift of eternal life through what He did for you on the cross. Ask Him to direct your life, to change you into the person He created you to be. Then be willing to listen to Him. Spend time with Him. Find a good church that preaches from the Bible. If you can’t go in person to services due to health reasons, there are online and television options for church. Associate with other Christians. Spend time in prayer and reading the Bible.

May God bless you now and always — and be God’s!

Here is a link to a web page (Campus Crusade for Christ) that will give you good information:

https://www.cru.org/us/en/how-to-know-god/would-you-like-to-know-god-personally.html