We all do many things that we shouldn’t, we all say many things we know are not good. We are all therefore guilty before a perfect and holy God. But amazingly, God loves people and wants to forgive them and take away their guilt!
Making certain that you are forgiven by God is really important. Everyone in the world does, says and thinks things that are bad and needs God to forgive them. If God doesn’t forgive us then, when we die, he will punish us for doing these things that were wrong and unkind, he won’t just ignore them. God doesn’t compare us with others around and then let us off for being less bad than others – instead he compares us with himself and we all fail to reach his standard.
Some people think that there are certain religious acts that we must do to make God like us and let us off, or that we have to do enough good and kind acts to cancel out the bad things – but neither of these ideas are right!
We all need someone perfect and powerful to take our punishment for us so we can go free – someone that will pay the debt we owe to set us free from having to pay the fine ourselves. Jesus came to this earth to do that for us.
There is nothing that you have done that God can’t forgive – you don’t have to try and earn his forgiveness it is a free gift given to you if you want to follow Jesus.
There was a criminal killed on the cross next to Jesus who put his trust and faith in Jesus to forgive him, this criminal never did anything to earn this forgiveness and he didn’t do any religious acts or take part in any religious ceremonies. The criminal simply believed in Jesus and was forgiven for everything he had ever done wrong.
You can also be forgiven by God for anything you have done, said or thought – there is nothing too bad or too dark or too evil for God to forgive.
If you are a follower of Jesus and you do something wrong, say something you shouldn’t or think something bad then you won’t be thrown out of God’s family!
God doesn’t run out of patience with you, He won’t pretend that he never knew you, and send you off to hell to be punished.
The bad you do will spoil your relationship with God, but you are still forgiven and loved.
God wants you to stop the bad you are doing and turn around and walk back to Him, sorry for letting him and yourself down.
God will always welcome you back home into his loving arms, he continues to forgive again and again, he will never turn you away and reject you no matter what terrible thing you have done.
Please come and chat with us so we can help you see the way back home – this is the only way to feel free from guilt and know undeserved, total forgiveness.