God created the world and everything we see to glorify himself. In this creation he longed for beings that he could have a personal relationship with and created Adam and Even in his image. Since love must be freely given, God created these two with he ability to choose whether to obey or disobey him. When Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God they brought sin and the punishment of sin into the lives of every man and woman born since.

Every since mankind first rebelled, God has been in pursuit of us to bring us back to him. Each person carries the guilt of disobeying God which leaves a  distance between us and a prefect creator. However, he loved us so much he couldn’t bear for us to be separated from him or for us to carry the punishment for our sin. God freely sent his only son Jesus to take our punishment by dying for us on a cross after living a perfect life. After Jesus gave his life on the cross he was buried in a tomb, but the story wasn’t over yet! Three days later, of his own power, he came back to life proving that he had overcome the power of death.

Although Jesus did all of the work on the cross to pay for our disobedience to God, we must still choose to follow him. We call this decision to follow Christ Salvation because in it we are saved from our sins. It is important for us to understand that there is nothing we can do to obtain Salvation for ourselves it is only because Jesus died for us that we could ever come to know God. We access God’s grace through faith that Jesus is the Son of God and by choosing to follow him.

 Once we have come to know God through Jesus we are told to express this commitment by being baptized. Baptism is a visible example of leaving our old lives behind and starting a new life as a believer in Jesus.

From the moment we accept God’s calling to become a follower of Jesus our lives begin to change. The Bible refers to becoming a follower of Jesus as being “born again” and becoming a “new creation” which means we begin living a new life and our old life is dead.  In this new life sin has no power over us and we live with the assurance that Jesus’ death paid for our punishment. This change isn’t something that we do ourselves, but instead is something God does in us. At the moment we become a follower of Jesus, God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us and begins to guide and change us. As we grow stronger in our understanding of God and Grace we begin to act differently and expeinrce the world in a whole new way.

God wanted us to know who he is and how to follow him so he gave us the Bible to tell us of his love for us. Although it was written by men, God inspired each one of them to record the Bible exactly like he wanted it. The Bible lays out God’s plan to save to us and how we are supposed to love others and follow God once we know him.

Once we come to know God he has a job for us! After making the decision to follow him he wants us to engaged in learning everything we can about him and teaching others about his love. As we become part of a church, we engage with a community of other believers who we learn from and serve God with. As a church we are given a mission by Jesus to go into the world with the goal of bringing others to God and teaching them how to serve him.