Salvation

Dear friend,

My wife Rozi and I are the Senior Pastors of The Life Centre of Hamilton in Hamilton, Victoria Australia. We are so blessed that you have taken a moment to see if God is really calling you. Let me start this by telling you a story.

Did you know that the God who created the entire universe wants to have a relationship with you? He wants to show His love to the world He created, to men and women just like us. We are His creation and He cares about us but we have an inherited defect that keeps us apart from Him. It came when the creator’s creation chooses to turn away from Him and his love. We deserved death and He could have tossed us away and begin again with a new creation, but He loved us so much He had to find a way to bridge the gap between us.

It started as a promise to the ones who caused this problem in the first place. We are told this story in a book of remembrance and instruction called the Bible. This book was created from stories and historical accounts passed down from one generation to the next. The people entrusted with the care of these stories and accounts were called the Hebrews, the ancestors of the modern day Jewish people. These people who recorded these accounts saw it as a matter of life and death to ensure that these records remained accurate to the letter.

This Bible we have today was translated from scrolls written in the original languages of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. It was divided up into 66 different sections based on author, subject and content. It is literally a book containing 66 different books written by 40 writers over a period of about 1600 years. There is something special about this book that makes it different from every other book on the planet. The only stories or histories that were recorded by the Hebrews were those that were “inspired” by God. So what this means to us is that the God of the universe literally came down and touched these writers and showed them what to write. God has made it a point to watch over this book which is full of His inspiration or power to make sure the information stays true. Some of these stories predict the future and others g–*ive us guidelines to live by. Some are examples of how or how not to live out our life from day to day and others are songs or poems. It’s an amazing book but at its very heart all 40 writers were inspired to write about God’s plan to bring us back to Him.

Really it’s very simple, one mans decision broke the way to God so another man had to fix it. Both of these men were special in that they were put on this earth in a different way than we were. The first man Adam, whose story can be found in the first of the books in the Bible called Genesis (which means “beginnings”), was created by God from the dust of the earth. He was tricked or deceived into turning away from God which broke the divine connection man had with his creator. Every child born after Adam from that point on was born with this connection already broken. Unless this connection is re-established before death we will all face an eternity trapped in a place of darkness and pain separated from our Creator forever.

The second man named Jesus was born to the virgin Mary. That’s right a virgin! She was touched by God before she ever had sexual relations with her fiancé Joseph and became pregnant with a son whose connection to God was intact. You’ll find the amazing story of the life of Jesus told by 4 different writers in the books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. (These 4 books are called the “gospels”) This miraculous birth gave Jesus a chance to repair what Adam broke. By making the right decision when faced by the same kind of deception that caused Adam to fall, Jesus could open the door to connection with God. Jesus did make the right decision but it cost him his life. He knew it would be certain death to make the right decision but he choose to do it anyway because he had God’s love for His creation in his heart as well. That’s one of the things that happen to a person when their divine connection is re-established to the Creator. The Creators love just fills their heart. Because Jesus didn’t deserve to die when he made the right choice and because of his great love for all of us, God raised him from the dead by that divine connection. His story is found in the second half of the Bible recorded by four different writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Now you might think that every child born after Jesus would be born with this connection to God intact, right? But it just isn’t that way for a very good reason. What Jesus did bridged the gap and gave us a choice to come back into relationship with the Creator. Even though God loves us extremely He won’t make us love Him, we have to choose. That was Adam’s original problem, he choose to turn away from his creator to take a path to certain death for eternity just because he wanted to do it his way. Sounds like pride and rebellion to me. I seem to remember facing these same problems in my own life especially during the teenage years.

There’s a lot more I could say and many other stories I could tell you but let me end this one with some simple steps you can take to re-establish you connection with our creator, the God of the universe. I will write down the steps and give you some reference points to find them yourself in the Bible. Each of the 66 books of the Bible are divided up by chapters and each chapter is divided up by verses. So the reference will be the name of the book in the Bible, a chapter number in that book followed by a verse or verses in that chapter.

So here are the simple steps to re-establish your connection with your creator.

Step 1- We must admit that you are a broken one.

Realize that we are all born with this broken connection and that we cannot fix it ourselves. It has nothing to do with wither you are a good or bad person because we are all born this way. The bible calls this condition “in sin”.

Romans 3:23 Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard,

Step 2- Understand that unless this condition changes we will receive eternal

death

Realize that unless we come to God and ask for His forgiveness for our rebellion and pride we will suffer the consequences of our choice. If we die in this condition we will be trapped in a place of darkness and pain forever separated from our creator.

Romans 6:23a The payment for sin is death.

Step 3- Believe that the sacrifice Jesus made can fix this broken condition.

Believe in the Creator’s plan and Jesus’ sacrifice to bridge this gap. Jesus knew that it would cost him his life but by his death everyone else would have a chance to come back to God our creator.

Romans 6:23b “…But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:8, But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

John 3:16 God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.

Step 4- Ask God to forgive you and save you.

God can hear you when you talk to him anywhere and at anytime. So acknowledge the first three steps and ask Him for His help and forgiveness. Ask Him to save you from that lost eternity and to re-establish your divine connection with him.

Romans 10:9, 13 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved…as the Scripture says, “Anyone who calls on the Lord will be saved

How will I know that my connection has been re-established?

Many times individuals will experience various sensations; a rush of emotion, sadness & crying followed by great joy, a keen sense of relief or even the sensation of warm liquid being poured over your body.

These are all valid experiences but your assurance of acceptance and reconnection comes from our belief of the truths found in the Bible. We simply accept that it is done when we act according to the directions found in the Bible wither we feel anything or not.

As the days progress from your first profession of faith in the words of God, you will start to see changes in your attitudes and actions. The Spirit of Jesus, also called the Holy Spirit has now taken residence in your heart. He will begin to show you things that He wants to change in your life. You should keep your new relationship with the God fresh by talking to Him throughout your days and reading about Him in the Bible. As you read and pray He will start to teach you about the Kingdom of God and all that is available to you.

Some of the benefits you receive by growing in your relationship with God through this re-connection are:

Knowing that you have a place in heaven – an eternal destiny. (1 John 5:11-13)
Never feeling alone because you have the help you need to get through each day! (Hebrews 13:5-6)
Coming to understand what it means to be a child of God (Rom 8:14, Gal 3:26)
Experiencing all of God’s blessings and promises so you can have an abundant life. (John 10:10)

If you’ve made this decision today we’d like to say, Welcome to the Family!

We would love to share more about this new life you’ve entered into. We want to help you take your first steps into the Kingdom of God by helping you understand the need for on-going repentance, being baptized in water, receiving the power of the Holy Spirit (baptized in the Spirit), studying His word (the Bible) and growth in your ability to talk to Him in prayer.

Please contact us by email at rick@sglifecentre.com.au We want to send you some more information and answer any questions you may have.

Many blessings,

Rick & Rozi Penny