A Free Gift For YOU!

I have an idea. For my Outreach class we are supposed to share The Diagram with 2 Non-Christians. Well, I haven't gotten to do that yet. I have shared bits and pieces here and there, but not the whole thing. And to be quite frank, I know that it is a scary thing to ask about and I doubt that many of my friends and family would come right out and ask me. So, I'm gonna make it easy for you.

STOP! Don't leave me yet.

I'm sure there are plenty of you out there like me that think you don't need to hear the truth or think you already know. But if it is the truth, (I will post plenty of Scripture to show that I'm not just making up a bunch of crap. Click on the Scripture to take you to www.biblegateway.com and you can select the version of the Bible that you read - NIV, King James, ESV, etc.) then why wouldn't you want to hear it. You can follow along in your Bible and do the research for yourself.

Maybe posting it on the blog won't be the most personable way to do this, but hey I'm gonna put it out there and let you hear it. It would be pretty selfish of me to not share the most amazing gift in the world! I'll also share personal experiences along the way.

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." Romans 1:16

I am going to do this in sections so that you don't get overwhelmed. I pray that you will have an open heart as you read this.

At the end of my testimony blog post I asked:

How sure are you that if you died tonight that you would go to Heaven? I know that before I was a Christian that I definitely wasn't 100% sure. I HOPED that I would go to Heaven and believed I was good enough to get there. I was maybe 75-80% sure.

What will you say to God if He asks why He should let you into His Heaven? I guess my answer before I was a Christian would have been that I have worked hard to be a good person. And I would have selfishly thought that I deserved to be there before plenty of other Joe Schmoe's.

If you are like I was and aren't 100% sure you'd go to Heaven if you died tonight, does that scare you? Do you ever lay in bed and wonder what would happen if your life were to end? Does not making it to Heaven worry you?

Did you know that one of the main reasons the Bible was written was to explain to you exactly how you could know for sure that you can go to Heaven? 1 John 5:13 says "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."

Since we're talking about going to Heaven which is where God is, let's talk about some of God's character qualities.

The Bible says many times that God is LOVE. 1 John 4:8 says "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." He loves us personally, and is interested in every aspect of our lives.

The Bible also describes God's character as HOLY. 1 Peter 1:16 says "for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."" Holy among other things, means perfect. God is absolutely perfect in every way. He never does anything wrong.

The Bible uses several other words to describe aspects of God's perfection. One of them is PURE. Habukkuk 1:13a says "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong." He can not approve of it, or have anything to do with it.

Another word to describe God's holiness is RIGHTEOUS. Psalm 11:7 says "For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face." God is perfect in His standards of right and wrong. God laid out a little set of rules for us in the Old Testament.

The 10 Commandments (Exodus 20)
Don't Murder
Don't Steal
Don't Covet (Covet means wanting something that belongs to another person. Like someone's spouse, go get your own.)
Don't Lie
Don't Swear
No Adultery
Honor Your Parents
Love God Supremely (Honor No Other Gods, No Idolatry, Keep the Sabbath Holy)

Another aspect of God's holiness is that He is JUST. Just means fair, not partial. Like a judge. In Romans 2:5-11 it says that God is not partial. He must punish all unrighteousness. "For God does not show favoritism." God will judge all the same, whether a priest or a prostitute. He is perfect in His justice.

That's it for this post. Not so bad was it? I think we can all agree that God is good! Here is a little drawing of The Diagram. You may have to click on it to make it big enough to read. I'll add more as I go.


To be continued...