Why Do We Need Jesus?
If you want your life to be rich, whole and meaningful, let us introduce you to someone who can make that happen for you. Jesus, the Son of God, can change your life in every way for the better.
While the Son of God is eternal, at a point in time, he came into this world as a man and was given the name Jesus. The name given at his birth describes what he came to do as described in Matthew 1:21, "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
Sin, both directly and indirectly, is the source of all bad things in our lives. Sin is the source of every social ill and of every personal problem. Sin is the bad news of death.
The Good News
The good news is that Jesus provides a way out. This is what is meant by John 3:16,"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." God prepared Jesus as the way for us to escape from sin and its consequences.
Being born as a man, Jesus lived a fully human life while never ceasing being God. In his early thirties, having completed a three-year tour of teaching, Jesus was put to death by being nailed to a cross. Three days later, he rose from the dead.
Through his death, burial and resurrection, Jesus paid the penalty for all of our sins. But he did not simply pay for our sins, he also provided each of us with the possibility of a new beginning. In doing this great work, Jesus completed the mission of being the Christ—the one appointed by God to overcome sin and its consequences.
Through Jesus Christ, our lives can take a new and better course. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
You Can Be Saved Eternally
Now that you know a bit about who Jesus is and what he has done, let us tell you how to receive this new life.
God is the one who has reached out to you through Jesus Christ. You must receive God's message about Jesus to come to faith. As Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."
God has put a choice on the table: Do you believe in Jesus or not? The promises of God rest on believing in Jesus Christ and stating your faith in him. "Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).
Faith in Christ is displayed in baptism, or immersion in water, showing the burial and resurrection of Jesus. This spiritual burial and resurrection is described in Colossians 2:12, "Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead."
"The powerful working of God" provides salvation in baptism. As 1 Peter 3:21 says, "Baptism... now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Baptism is a claim on the new life God provides for us in Jesus Christ. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3). The grace of God provided in baptism is the foundation of a new and better life.