We are meant to be connected. Connected to God. Connected to one another. Jesus came to connect us to God. Once we are, and we fully live in that reality, it frees us to become deeply connected to one another.
Being connected to God is what we were created for. Apart from him, life is an endless search for meaning, for significance, for fulfillment. We are adrift in a very big cosmos. When we connect to him, we come home. He is where we were meant to be all along.
Becoming connected to God is simple. A child can do it. That’s what Jesus promised, and it makes sense. If being connected to God is his desire, his invitation, his purpose for all of us, why would he make it hard? God deeply wants to be connected to us. It’s why he made us.
There is bad news, though. Because of humanity’s fall into sin, we are all born disconnected from God. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Look around you. Glance at the news. Does the world look like it’s connected to God, drawing upon his goodness and love, and continually passing that along to each other? Hardly. That’s because we are separated from him. He doesn’t live in us.
But God wanted us connected to him. So he made that possible. His plan was simple, but it cost him everything.
Jesus, who is God the Son, came in the flesh so we could become connected to God. He died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins, which separate us from God. He rose from the dead so that he could come live within us, making himself one with us. Once he lives in us, we have his life, eternal life, forever.
We can’t earn any of this. We can’t ever become good enough to merit it. It’s a gift. It’s only available as a gift. All we can do is receive it. There’s a word for this kind of receiving. It’s called faith. Faith is simply trust. All true, lasting relationships are built on trust. It’s the same with us and God. The good news is simple:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16, ESV
The good news is that
we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious s tandard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Jesus Christ when he freed us from the penalty of our sins. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. (Romans 3:22-25, NLT)
There are no religious rituals required to place our faith in Jesus. It’s all a matter of trust. To enter into a relationship with God, to receive his complete forgiveness, to become connected to him, our heart simply says to him, “I believe that what you’re saying is true. I choose to place my trust in Jesus and everything he’s done on my behalf. I choose to receive your gift.” We might express our trust through a prayer like this:
Jesus, I recognize that I need your forgiveness, and the life you offer. Thank you for dying for my sins and rising from the dead on my behalf, so you could give me true life. I receive you by faith as my Savior and Lord. I trust you to forgive my sins, give me a new heart, come live within me, and join yourself to me forever. Thank you for giving me new life.
It’s not the words of a prayer that are vital. It’s the faith they represent. You can place your trust in Jesus, right now, right where you are.
(There is nothing more complicated about the good news of Jesus Christ than that, but if you have further questions, a great no-obligation number to call is the Billy Graham Association prayer line at 888-388-2683 or 855-255-7729.)
If you have chosen to place your trust in Jesus as your Savior, congratulations! You have entered into a forever relationship with him. So now what do you do?
Well, when you become connected to him, God does a lot more than just forgive you. And it’s vital for us to know what that “more” is, because it’s the foundation of how we now live our lives with him. But we don’t have to guess at any of this. God has made it plain to us. The next section, “Know Who You Are”, explains all he has done to enable us to live a truly abundant life with him.