Have you ever considered that God cares about you personally including every detail of your life? That’s right, He does! In fact He cares so much, that He provided a way to once again come back into a personal relationship with Him, a relationship of forgiveness, peace, assurance, confidence, and victory. Impossible you might say? Perhaps the answer is not what you have considered before.
You see, everyone (that means you and me) has inherited a human nature that is corrupted by sin. That is why even the best of people still do things that are wrong. This sin problem has created a gap between us and God so great that no effort on our part is good enough to build a bridge back to God. As a result, we all deserve both physical and eternal death. The situation would be hopeless if that was the end of the story. God loved each of us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to brutally suffer and die an agonizing death on a Roman cross to pay the price of our sin. His death has paid the penalty that you and I deserve. His resurrection from the grave three days later was a permanent victory over death and Satan, and it made possible full forgiveness plus a life forever in heaven with the Lord for each of us.
This offer of salvation and eternal life is a free gift that is not possible to earn through any kind of effort from us. Jesus Christ has already met the terms demanded by God – the substitutionary death of the only One who was ever perfect and sinless! Like any gift, each of us must make a personal decision to either accept or reject this offer from God. To receive God’s free gift to us, and thus become saved from our sins and death (to be “born again” as Jesus called it), we must have a repentant attitude toward our own rebelliousness, pride, and sin, and place our entire trust in what Jesus Christ has completed as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is only through this that we will again be at peace with God and will go to be with Him in heaven when our life here on earth comes to an end.
If God is prompting you about this, why not pray something like this to Him right now: “Dear God, thank you for loving me so much that You sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross to pay for my sins. Because I believe in Jesus for eternal life, I trust that you have forgiven me and given me that life as a free gift. Help me now to live for You in such a way that I’ll say ‘Thank You’ with all my life too.”
If you really mean and believe what you say, God will do exactly as He has promised. There will be immediate internal changes in your life that will only continue to increase and show for the rest of your life. You will no longer live for yourself. Your life belongs to the Lord and your desire will be to obey Him. The problems of life do not go away, but you will have a whole new purpose for living. You will be at peace with God. That load from sin and the emptiness of trying to satisfy yourself with things of this world that are only hollow will be gone. You will have the privilege of direct access to God that only a member of God’s family can have. God has given His Word, the Bible, to us as the textbook for life. In addition, as a new believer, you will have a whole new “family” of other believers in a church to help you to learn and grow and to provide support.
That is where we at South Waterboro Bible Chapel fit in. We teach and preach the Bible. We believe that the Bible is still relevant for today, that it is entirely without error, that it is indeed the Word of God, and that it is our authority as given by God for what we believe and practice. We are a local gathering of believers in Jesus Christ. While holding to Baptist distinctives in many areas according to our understanding of Scripture, as an independent evangelical congregation we are first and only Christians, and are a part of all those who also have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation and believe the Word of God in word and practice. We accept the responsibility of declaring the Gospel to the world and teaching those who have become believers in Jesus Christ. We invite you to visit with us and inquire further. If we can be of any help or answer any questions, please contact us. We encourage you to worship with us any time you are in the southern Maine area. May God bless you.