Do you consider yourself to be a good person? Will you go to Heaven when you die? Ask yourself these questions, and be honest. Have you ever told a lie? What do you call someone who tells lies? Have you ever stolen anything? Value is irrelevant. Have you ever taken the Lord's name in vain? Jesus said, "you have heard it said of old, do not commit adultery, but I say to you if you have ever looked at a woman to lust after her, you have committed adultery with her already in your heart." So if you are like the rest of us and answered "yes" to whether you have ever told a lie, you are a liar. If you are like most of us and have stolen (taking a cookie from mom's cookie jar counts), then you are a thief. If you have taken the Lord's name in vain, used his name in place of a four-letter filth word, you are guilty of blasphemy, a very serious offence in the eyes of God. If you have red blood in your veins, you have surely looked with lust, and are an adulterer. You have to face God on Judgment day. What will you say? How will you avoid the punishment we all deserve for violating God's Law? We have only looked at four of His ten commandments, and we are all guilty of violating the other six as well. If God gives you justice, you will end up in hell!

I don't know you, but I don't want you to go to Hell. God doesn't either! Do you know what He did so that you wouldn't have to go to Hell? The Bible says that while we were still sinners (violators of his Law), and still his enemies, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life to die on the cross in our place. We broke the Law, and Jesus paid our fine. It would be like if we committed a felony and went to court. We are found guilty, and despite any good deeds we may have done before or since, we deserve the punishment prescribed by law. The judge, if he is good, MUST sentence us. However, the law allows the judge himself to step down from the bench and pay our fines for us. That is what God did; he stepped down from His bench and paid our fines for us.

What must we do in response? First of all, we must repent, which means to completely turn from and forsake our sins. Also, we must place our trust completely in the Savior, the way a skydiver trusts his parachute. Nothing we do can ever make up for violating the Law of a perfect, Holy, and righteous God. The only salvation we have is in the infinite penalty that He paid on our behalf.

That is the Good News! We deserve Hell, but we don't have to go there. Nothing we do can earn our way to Heaven, but nothing we have done is too severe to receive the forgiveness that comes through the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross.