You are invited

red-rock The party on this earth is spoiled, but there is good news. God is preparing an after party beyond all imagination and you are invited! He will create a new heaven and earth where his kingdom will be, a perfect world and life that can never be made undone. lake lake A place and existence without trouble, evil, sorrow, sadness, emptiness and other negative things. Instead we will live the life that God always intended us to have, with ultimate and everlasting joy, happiness and goodness. It will far surpass our greatest expectations. We can't fully understand this concept, also because we are only used to our experiences in a world that is broken. Maybe we can't 'see' it yet, but we can have faith.

We can trust God, but naturally trust (faith) needs to be developed. And our trust and faith in God can start to grow once we get to know him better. God wants to have a relationship with us and in order to do so he made himself known. He 'speaks' in different ways, one is through creation. When you pay attention to the wonders of nature and all living beings like animals and humans, you can clearly see ingenious design. Of course God also reveals himself via the Bible, but when we look at Jesus we will get the best picture of him. Jesus is God who took on the form of a man. Because the problem was caused by humans it needed to be made undone by a human.

When we look at and study on the person and life of Jesus Christ, we will see how God is like. What he wants, what he supports and what is against his will. Jesus used story's and symbols to show the heart (will) of God the Father. Like the parable of the lost sheep described in Matthew chapter 18 verse 12-14. From the great flog there is one sheep that wandered off and got lost, but the shepherd (God) didn't gave up on it and went out to find and bring it back to him in safety. This story shows us that God cares about the individual, which means that he cares about you. You are noticed, you are wanted, you are loved and your life matters. This is how God thinks of you and he is the highest authority.

God don't want you to be lost, he wants to save you. Look at this declaration in the first letter to Timothy the second chapter verse 3-4: "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." Jesus did all that what was necessary for us to get saved. He was without sin and volunteered to take upon him our sin and pay the price for it. And the penalty of sin is death, not only that of the physical body, but also a spiritual death. Being cut off from God (the Father), causing all evil and misery to enter. That's why he, God the Son, got deserted by the Father in the end and died on the cross. But after fulfilling his mission, the Father raised him from the dead. Sin is dealt with and death has been overcome. And Jesus became the (only) way back to God.

And now it's up to us. God did what he could (and what we couldn't do), and through Jesus he offers us grace, redemption and salvation. God wants you in his kingdom, you're invited for his after party, the life after this life. The best is yet to come! But with all invitations it's useless if we don't accept it personally. We can receive our ticket to God's glory and a glorious life when we choose to accept Jesus personally as our Saviour and Lord. This means that we believe that he is the Son of God, and that he alone did what no one else could do, restore the relationship with God for us. And that we are willing to trust, to follow and to obey him.

Obeying usually doesn't sound appealing to us, but it's a lot easier when someone only wants (and knows) what's best for you. And the price that Jesus was willing to pay for us, assures us that we can trust God in everything. He wants the best for us, and he wants us to enjoy life, because he created us like that. But not everything that seems good and nice to us actually is. And God can oversee it all, our decisions and the consequences. That's why he gave us some rules to follow, not to frustrate or annoy us, but to protect us. These are boundaries of love, like a parent who warns a kid, so that it will not burn itself to something hot. And with God there is plenty of room to do nice things, in a safe way, that won't harm us or others.

If you are willing to accept God's invitation, then you can just say a simple but sincere prayer. A prayer is basically talking to God. He's almighty, he will hear you and you can just speak out to him. Tell him that you want to know him more, confess your wrong doings, ask him to forgive you and to lead you the rest of your life. Remember that it's a life changing decision, so it will be good to get in contact with a local church where they can help you further to grow in your faith. Of course we would like to help you as well, so feel free to contact us. Check 'move on' for more information about this.

Check the 'going deep' section for more details on specific subjects (like: the spiritual death, faith, creation).