How to Know Jesus Personally – Start Your Faith Journey TodaySample

Jesus said that whoever wants to enter the kingdom of God must repent, believe in the Gospel, and be born again. But what does that mean? Even Nicodemus, a respected Pharisee, struggled to understand (John 3:4).

Before we discuss repentance, we need to understand the Gospel. The Gospel means "Good news," but this Good news doesn’t make sense without first understanding the bad news—and why we need it.

In the beginning, God created humanity in His image for a personal relationship with Him (Genesis 1:27). He gave us authority over the earth, but we rebelled, choosing to be our own god (Romans 3:23). This led to separation from God, corruption of creation, and the entrance of sin, death, and suffering (Romans 5:12). Spiritually dead, mankind now faces judgment after death for living lives apart from God (Hebrews 9:27).

The big problem is that, no matter how hard we try to make up for our moral failures, we can’t work our way back to God. Every other religion teaches doing enough good to earn favor, but it doesn’t work. Good works done to earn forgiveness are not selfless but selfish.

We are all in trouble and will stand before God one day, giving an account for our moral failures. Some might say, “I’m not a bad person,” but according to Jesus and God’s standard, we are not good enough. The Bible shows us the Ten Commandments to reveal our need for salvation and forgiveness. Have you ever lied, stolen, disrespected your parents, or coveted what others have? The reality is, we’ve all sinned.

But God has a solution. Jesus came to restore us to the Father. He lived a sinless life, took the punishment we deserved, and fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (Isaiah 53:5). On the cross, He was separated from the Father so we could be reconciled to God. He took our sins and punishment (2 Corinthians 5:21) and conquered death. Through Him, we are promised forgiveness, a new heart, new desires, and His law written on it (Ezekiel 36:26). This is being born again. More than that, He promises to make us children of God.

In the next chapter, we’ll explore how we can embrace this gift in our lives.