JESUS IS ALIVE AND
KNOWS YOUR NAME!

Jesus is real. He knows your name and your situation and loves you. He is not far off, distant from you. He wants you to know that He is alive and willing to help you, and that if you desire to know Him, you can. If you ask Him to help you, He will. If you talk to Him, He will listen, and He will talk to you.

Jesus is the reason you have this paper in your hands, because He told us to write it for you, and made sure that it got to you. He knows all about you, from the start of your life until this very moment, and has compassionate sympathy for you, and your weaknesses and your problems. He will help you if you ask Him. He never intended for you to be alone. He has always wanted you to know Him. This is why He made you, for the purpose of friendship with you. You can trust Him, because to Him friendship is deep, and loving, and eternal. He will never leave you. All you have to do is be yourself and talk to Jesus and He will answer you and help you and then you can get to know Him. He is watching you read this, full of love for you.

This is written to explain why Jesus came and laid down His life for us. It explains that death was necessary in response to sin, and why He chose to make that death His own. He did it for you because He loves you.

The Sacrifice: Like Father, Like Son

Other than Jesus, no one in the history of the world, has been sinless. Sin is self over others. All sin comes from self in one form or another. It seems innocent to live for self but it is not. The Father created us to love one another and to love Him, but sin is the opposite of love. It is a powerful, destructive force, which leads towards death. Because it leads to death, only death can be the penalty for sin.

Sin moves from person to person, nation to nation. It causes pain and harm to all, and it is what separates people from God and takes them to hell. God will not allow sin to enter heaven or heaven would become like the earth has become, full of violence and evil and self-centered acts. For years God allowed animals’ deaths to be substituted for ours, so Adam, Job, Abraham, and many others, had a relationship with Him. They loved Him and talked with Him, and He loved and talked with them. He wants the same relationship with you. but you no longer need to sacrifice an animal to please Him.

Man's wisdom

Man has often tried to have a relationship with God through some other way than the way God intended. Adam's son, Cain, gave an offering of vegetables, instead of an animal. However, the Father didn't receive Cain's sacrifice, because there was no provision for sin in it. It didn't matter if Cain had a good attitude or a bad attitude towards God, if his sacrifice was not sufficient to provide atonement for sin.

People don’t really understand sin. To us sin is just a religious word. Many don't see why anything should be done about it, but God realizes how selfish and hurtful and powerful it is, and what a terrible suffering it causes to all of us. In heaven, without sin at last, we will be face to face with God. There we will be free from sin and its power and effects, in a place where everyone, whether human or angel or spiritual being, all love one another and live lives of love.

God's wisdom

God is wise, and because of His deep wisdom He is always right in what He says. If we don't heed Him and go the way He provided, then because of sin He must withdraw and turn away from us. He is pure and loving and selfless, and will not be marred by sin. If you remain in your sin, without provision for it, you separate yourself from Him, and He cannot draw near, even though He yearns to draw near to you so that you might know Him. To know God, there must be provision for your sin.

Knowing God

For centuries, mankind offered animal sacrifices to God, which had to be offered over and over. Many felt that God was distant from them and few really knew Him well. Often people did religious acts hoping to win His favor. Being religious and doing religious acts makes people feel good about themselves, and of course there is value in helping one another because we are all God's creation, but religious acts are not the same as knowing God for yourself. We are created in God's image and He is like us, only sinless and always acting from love. He is a loving Being who thinks, feels, loves, weeps, laughs, and cares. He created us to know Him. Adam knew Him, as did Moses, Abraham, Samuel, Paul, and many others, and He considers each of them to be His friends. Each of them is alive and knows Him now. They are with Him now, in heaven, as He promises you eventually will be, after you come to know Him.

The Father knew that animal sacrifices are not enough. Man began to lose sight of knowing God into becoming satisfied with religious acts. As amazing as it is, God decided to come to earth Himself, as a man, to pay the penalty for sin, once for all, so all men can have a relationship with Him. The penalty for sin would be eternally met, (as painful and tortuous to Himself as it was) and mankind would no longer have to offer, again and again, the blood of animals.

Jesus

This is who Jesus is and why He came. He is God, come to earth, to provide an eternal sacrifice for all men, so that whosoever will may come to the Father through His death, His own blood sacrifice for our sin. Jesus was and is without sin, so the offering He gave to the Father was acceptable. His death was the perfect sacrifice. He died with our sin on Him. His loving sacrifice was sufficient in every way, to atone for sin, and to make a bridge between man and God, so that we might come back to the Father again.

Jesus is compassionate, beautiful, kind, and loving. The consequences of our sin could have been our destruction, as the whole world was destroyed in Noah's day. God could have caused mankind to cease to exist at all. The sacrifice He made, in order to prevent our destruction and to restore us to Himself, was entirely voluntary on His part. Jesus is God Almighty. He is a free Being. Who could prevent Him from destroying us? Who could force Him to come and lay down His life for us? People often think that it was God's duty to save us from ourselves. No, it was not duty, but nobility. We can hardly comprehend the kind of love that He has, which caused Him to offer Himself in our place. If we lived a million years, we would never deserve what Jesus did for us. Jesus is gentle, yet powerful. He has absolute power over death. This was proven when Jesus brought Himself back to life after He was killed.

It is finished

Now that Jesus' life has been taken, the Father is no longer willing for man to come any other way, whether it is by the blood of animals, another religion, philosophy, or belief system. The veil in the temple, leading into the holiest room, set aside for God alone, was torn from top to bottom (from heaven to earth) by God's hand while Jesus was on the cross, opening the way into God's presence. Jesus said at that time, "It is finished." Death was required in response to sin, and it was His own beloved Son's death that the Father witnessed and received, for our sin.

You will feel His presence

The good news is that you no longer have to feel that God is distant, but you can come to the Father, and in humility ask Him to apply the sacrifice of Jesus to your sin, and He gladly will. Then you can talk to Him, and He will talk to you, and enter into a relationship with you that will never end. In the days to come, He will be close to you, no matter what comes into your life personally, or onto the entire world. He will stay with you and love you and help you.

He will make Himself known to you by His Holy Spirit. You will feel His presence, and He will answer your prayers. You will begin to get to know Jesus, who is full of love and good humor, and wisdom and kindness. He will help you to think clearly, with right thinking, about your life and the world. As you talk to Him and He to you, He will draw very close to you. Not only can you talk to Him about your own life, but also He will show you His thoughts and His plans, and all that is on His heart, just as you know the feelings and thoughts from the heart of any friend you love. Eventually, He will bring you to heaven to be with Him forever. In the meantime, while on earth, you can know Him well. Knowing Jesus is not about going to church,
because those who love Him and know Him ARE His church. Trust Jesus, and He will show you what He wants you to do. The Bible was written through the Holy Spirit for our sakes, but was not meant to take the place of knowing Him. The Bible truly is the word of God, and it leads to Jesus who loves you and died for you and who is near you right now, wanting you to know Him.

Now that you have read this, you can understand that Jesus’ death on the cross was out of love for you. It was for your sin He died, because He desires freedom for you. He loves you, and is waiting for you to talk to Him, and for you to hear His voice and feel His presence. He paid the penalty for your sin, even though you don’t really understand it. You can trust Him. Over time, He will show you the sin in your life, and will lead you away from it. Never again will you be alone, because your Friend and your God will be with you at all times, in all things, loving you and helping you.

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