In a nutshell

When I was 12 or 13 years old, usually before going to sleep at night, I began to wonder if I would ever know God. I believed he existed, but I didn’t know how to meet him. There was no one in my life who talked about knowing God. My mother and father didn’t talk about him, nor did the people in my neighborhood. No one ever tried to help me learn what the Bible says about how God could change my life. It was a very hopeless feeling and it continued for 7 or 8 years.

When I was a young man, I happened to meet someone who asked me if I was a Christian. I told him I wasn’t, that I had heard people say that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, but I had never been told any reason to believe in him. But when I met this person and was open to him helping me, I learned that God came to earth when Jesus – a real person in human history – was born, and that Jesus died on the cross so that I could be forgiven of all the things I had done that had separated me from God. I learned that Jesus rose from the dead and will send his Holy Spirit into the heart of everyone who asks him for forgiveness for their sins and asks him to take control of their life as their Lord and Savior.

I prayed to receive Christ that day. Now, I know that God is in my heart, helping me to pray and to tell others about him and to show his love to people. I know that he forgives me when I ask him to forgive me for the times when I fail to do what is right, the times when I sin. And I know that I will be with him in heaven when I die because God’s Holy Spirit will live in me forever.

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