Life is a gift
You can’t earn it

You might disagree
Is not our whole society based on merits?
Unfortunately it is

Thing is that everything we can do
Comes from the potential that was given us at birth
It was all a gift
We have to work to develop these gifts true
But even the ability to do that was given

So do we keep priding ourselves on our achievements?
Or can we live with humility
And give honor to whom it is truly due
Which in the end is always God

I’ve heard it say
That our value does not come from what we do
But what we do comes from who we are

We were made with value
And what we do or don’t do can’t influence this
We cannot ad to our value by what we do
Nor can we diminish it by our mistakes

Our value is constant
And so is God’s love for us
We cannot mess up this love
Nor can we increase it
It’s already more than what we need

God will never withhold his love from us
No matter how we live
But are WE withholding HIM?

The bible says God opposes the proud
What does that mean? Why?

If we try to earn love and acceptance
We not only give honor to ourselves
For what was given to us freely
But we also block our heart
From receiving the depth of his love for us
Which is not based on merit
But freely given

Life is a gift

You can’t earn it even if you did everything perfect
That ability still comes from Him
You where made from love
The love of God
You don’t have anything to give him back for that
Except what he gave you first

So why don’t give him your life?
Give him what already belongs to him anyway
For He made you
And loves you
And wants you to experience the fullness of life
The way He intended it to be

With him
Because apart from his love
We really are handicapped
And we will always try
To find love and fulfilment
From things and people that can’t give it to us

He is the source of our life
In him we live and move
and have our being

So why not connect with this source
So we can live life fully

But how does this work?
Can we just decide one day
We want to connect with God
Despite all the bad things we did
Despite being rebellious against Him
Our whole life?

Yes and no!
We can come to God
At any time in our lives
No matter what we did
Or didn’t do
He is always ready to forgive us
If we repent and turn to Him

But how is this possible?
That’s where the “no” comes in
God is holy and righteous
And He is not willing to forgive us
Without the rightful punishment
For our sin being paid
Because then we would not learn
What is good and what is wrong
(righteousness)

There is no way though we are able
to bear the punishment for our own sin
We would have to suffer forever
and indeed we will
If we don’t accept God’s forgiveness
through Jesus Christ

So Jesus, the son of God
Who himself is God as well
Came down from heaven to live like a man
He lived a perfect life
He taught us the ways of God
Then He died on a cross
To pay the sentence
For OUR sin
And because of that we can now be
In rightstanding with God
Forgiven and clean

If you want to give your life to God and become his child you can pray along these lines.
You don’t have to use these exact words but you can if you’re at a loss for words.
Just say this prayer and mean it with your whole heart:

Dear Jesus

I repent of my sin and give my life to you
Thank you for dying for me
and paying the punishment for my sin
I accept this free gift
Of forgiveness

Fill me with your Holy Spirit
So that I will be able to obey you
And with your help
Because your Spirit now lives inside of me
I turn from my life of sin
Of pride and selfishness
And I completely give it to you

I hold nothing back
And I give you access to every part of me
So you can change me
And make me the way you intended me to be
Show me your ways
And help me to hear your voice
So I will never turn from your side
Lead me in the plan you have for my life

I now don’t live for myself anymore
but for you

Amen

WELCOME  into God’s family!

If you prayed this prayer and meant it
You are now adopted as his child
You are his forever
Nothing can ever separate you from him

You are a whole new creation
The bible calls it “born again”
(spiritually)

You now have a seat in heaven
You have dual citizenship
You live on the earth in your body
But your spirit is in heaven

This is possible because
The natural and the spiritual
Are interwoven

Heaven and hell are not
Some places far away
They are inside

And hopefully we chose heaven
Rather than hell
To be the place we live from
To be the source of our life

Your body may look the same
And you might still have sinfull desires
Or addictions
(many experienced they were broken of right away!)

But your spirit is made new and perfect
Without spot, no blemish
And when you learn to live
more and more from your spirit
which is now one with God’s spirit
(whom we call the Holy Spirit)
your life begins to change
You become the person
You were made to be

Pure and holy
Loving and kind
And most important
Living in harmony with your Maker
Who is the Lover of your soul

Nothing and no one can ever come close
To the fulfilment that HE gives

So welcome once again
You are now a child of God

Try to connect with other believers
Your spiritual brothers and sisters
Since they will help you to grow in your faith
And teach you spiritual principles
You will need

But most important
Spent time everyday with God
Sit down and talk with him
Don’t make it a monologue
He wants to talk back

Listen for his voice
When you quiet all the noise
All the other voices in your head
that try to get your attention
you will here His

A book that really helped me to hear his voice is

“Can you hear me? Tuning in to the God Who Speaks”

By Brad Yersak

You can find in on Amazon

Another thing that is important is that you find someone that can baptize you with water.
This is important because we cannot cleanse ourselves from our sin. It symbolizes that God does that for us.
Baptism is an outward testimony of the decision we made inside our heart, to give our lives to God and it is powerful.
It depicts how God considers the death of Jesus as our death: the death of our old sinful self. You see God does not fix us. He “kills” us and then makes something totally new from us. So when we are in the water we are baptised in his death and because of that we are forgiven our sin because God considers us as having paid the punishment for our sin. Our sentence is served in his eyes through the death of Jesus in our place.
Then when we come out of the water, this is a picture of coming alive from the death life we were living. Like Jesus rose from the death and looked totally different so we now become a new person.
You will (possibly gradually) start to notice you’re different now.

You can be baptised in a church or by another believer that is already baptised.
It does not have to be in a churchbuilding, it can be outside, in a swimming pool, or in your own home in your bathtub. If you can’t be immersed in water just let someone sprinkle water on your head although I believe total immersion in water is a better depiction of what it symbolizes.
The one that baptises you only has to say: “I baptise you in the name of Jesus Christ”. Then they gently help you being immersed from head to toe and help you get up from the water.
Then they can ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
That’s it! You’re baptised and testified to the world that you are now a new person, a follower of Jesus Christ, a child of God.

Btw technically you can be saved (become God’s child) without being baptised but it is important to be baptised in order to overcome our old sinful habits. We have to consider ourselves as having been crucified with Jesus in order to live this new life. We can’t do that in our own ability. Jesus is now our righteousness which means we live righteous (holy, in obedience to God) because of our unity with Him.
Don’t worry it’s often a work in progress and He will even work on your will, so you’ll have the desire to obey Him where you didn’t have that desire before.
It’s not about earning back your forgiveness, that is not possible. But obeying him leads you to experience the fulness of life He intended you to have. It’s all for your own good and protection, like a parent can’t protect a child that doesn’t obey right? The parent can’t protect it from the car that’s coming down the street if it ignores the parents warning and crosses over anyway. It’s like that with God.
And yes thankfully He does protect us at times when we are stubborn and still in the process of learning to obey, there is a lot of mercy with God. But generally speaking his commands are needed for our protection.
You don’t have to become anxious that you won’t obey him. Just lean on Jesus inside you. He is righteous and therefore you are. Just confess that out loud if you struggle to obey or to overcome addiction.
Just say “Jesus is my righteousness” every time you struggle. Don’t even try to obey in your own strength. You only need to be willing and He will do the rest.
He will show you which way to go and empower you to walk in it.

Keep communicating with him daily, spend time in his presence and enjoy him enjoying you!
Read the articles under “Relationship with God” for keys on how to do this.
Btw marrying God is just another way of saying you became a believer. It speaks about how personal it is and that’s it’s permanent.

It’s also important to read the bible. You’ll get to know God better through it.
Read “Vows” for more information about the bible.

Bless you,

Your journey has just begun!

On this website you can find more teaching about the first steps of this journey, about walking with God

https://www.shilohfellowship.com/growingingod

They also have an online church in case you are looking for one.

YOU ARE SO LOVED AND HEAVEN IS THROWING A BIG PARTY BECAUSE YOU CAME HOME!

WELCOME HOME CHILD!