You Matter
You are Seen. You are Known. You are Loved.
Imagine the most breathtaking sight in nature. Regardless of how spectacular, it doesn’t begin to compare to the beauty, wonder, and complexity of the miracle that is You. Before you drew your first breath, you were born in the mind of God. The Creator of the Universe designed every intimate detail of your being for Himself. He determined exactly when you would enter history and remains intensely interested and involved in your life.
If you had been born into God’s perfect world, you would have entered an environment created to nourish every part of life and delight your senses. Your relationship with Him would have satisfied your soul, given meaning to life, and ensured harmony in all other relationships. You were built to need Him with a mind ready to receive and apply His wisdom, a will to rule over creation with His delegated authority, and emotions energized by love that drew identity and value from Him. You were made to live in Paradise with Him — a place of perfect peace and safety where you lacked nothing. It’s how life was meant to be.
Genesis 1-2, Psalm 139:1-16, Colossians 1:16-17
But You Weren’t Born Into Paradise, Were You?
Instead, you were born thirsty into a world that offers endless options: relationships, power, possessions, food, sex, popularity, work, drugs, self-sufficiency, and spirituality. You can choose whatever you want, but none satisfy for more than a minute. You’re still longing, still empty, still searching. And so tired of chasing dreams that promise life but deliver hopelessness and death.
Surely, there’s more to life than a world of people all doing what they think is right based on
“I think, I want, and I feel” and painfully colliding with each other.
Life isn’t supposed to be this way.
Genesis 3-4, Romans 1
The Missing Piece Is Jesus
Scripture tells us the problem is that we’re disconnected from God, our Source of Life. We’re all guilty of breaking His laws and the penalty for this sin is death. The kind of death that separates us from God, attracts and enslaves us to things that destroy us, and leads to judgment and eternal suffering.
No matter what - God still wants you. He sees you returning to the same dry wells over and over again and He sent His Son Jesus to meet you right there in the desert. Jesus “gets” you, because He’s “been” you.
Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin.”
Because Jesus suffered and died in your place, He has the power to reconcile your relationship with God.
1 John 3:4, Romans 3:23, 6:23, Hebrews 2:17-18, Colossians 1:19-20
Living Water
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New Life - Fresh Start
New Life (Salvation) is a gift from God through Jesus freely available to anyone who makes a one-time decision to trust in (rely upon) His sacrifice as payment for their sin. Simply talk to God in your own words (pray) and admit that you’ve sinned and need His forgiveness. Tell Him you believe by faith that Jesus is the Son of God, that He experienced the temptations of life as you do but never sinned, that He suffered and died on a cross to pay the penalty for your sins, and that He rose again and reigns in Heaven today. If you sincerely accept God’s gracious and merciful gift, you are saved from the penalty for sin, and your new life has begun!
John 1 :12, 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Hebrews 1:3, The Book of John
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Clean Heart - Clean Hands
Jesus calls you to repent of sin. Repentance acknowledges that God’s rules are right and good, and He has the authority to make them. It’s more than feeling sorry for things you’ve done. It means daily and deliberately turning away from your old way of believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving that brought death and receiving His true way that brings life.
Matthew 4:17, Luke 5:32, Colossians 3:5-17
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Already - Not Yet!
When you accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord, some huge changes happen instantly! You are immediately declared “Not Guilty” and set free from the shame, fear, and penalty of sin. You are “Already” a child of God and guaranteed an eternal home with Him in Heaven. Jesus restores your relationship with God and puts His own Spirit within you to teach you and help you change.
Here’s where the “Not Yet” part comes in and creates so much frustration. The sin nature that used to rule your life is still in you too and relentlessly tries to draw you away from God and back to sin that destroys you and your relationships. It’s a fierce struggle but you now have the same Spirit that enabled Jesus to overcome temptation living within you. He will reveal God’s glory, power, and character to you as you spend time in prayer, Bible study, and worship. Becoming more like Jesus is a process with a lot of falling down and getting back up. You’ll spend the rest of your life learning what it means to depend upon God for everything you need, but His love is secure, and He’s always with you.
And, as you do, little by little, life becomes closer to how it is really supposed to be until the awesome day when Paradise is finally and eternally Restored!
Romans 5-8; 12:2; John 14:1-3; Revelation 21:1-8
Thirst-Quencher
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14