As a kid, I went to church all the time and learned a lot about God. I usually wanted to make God happy by the way I lived my life. However, even though I wanted to be good most of the time, I knew I still had a sinful heart. I didn’t have the power to be as good as I wanted to be and sometimes I didn’t care if I was good or not. Life had so many choices, but also so many consequences.

The Bible says that ALL of us have sinned. That means we all do things that don’t please God and that is why we bring sadness and pain to ourselves and to others. Even though some people sin more than others, none of us can be perfect like God who never sins. We all suffer the consequences of our sin.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. When you work a job, you get a paycheck and that’s fair because you earned it. Well, when you sin you earn the punishment of death, physical death and spiritual death in a place called hell. Because we are sinful, we can’t go to heaven when we die. God won’t let us carry our sin into heaven. I recognized I didn’t deserve to go to heaven and live forever with God, and I sure couldn’t earn it just by trying to be good most of the time.

Since God knows we are sinful, out of amazing love for us, He provided a way for us to be forgiven. He sent Jesus, His Son, to come to earth and live the perfect life without sin. The kind of life we are not able to live. Then Jesus died on the cross and took the punishment that we deserved because of our sins. He was buried and rose from the grave to prove He is God and He can do what He says He can do.

Jesus taking my sin when he didn’t have to, and dying in my place, would be like me going to the hospital to visit a friend who is dying of cancer. If I went to the hospital and said, “Take all the cancer cells out of him and put them in me.” Then my friend would live and I would die. That is like what Jesus did for me. He said, “Take all of Mary’s sin and put it on me and I will die in her place, so she can be forgiven and live forever in heaven.”

When I was a teenager and I understood what Jesus did for me, I asked Him to forgive my sin and He did, and I surrendered my life to Him. He also gave His Holy Spirit to live in me, so I have the power to say, “NO” to sin and to enjoy a close relationship with God. The Holy Spirit helps me love God and love people and I no longer have to suffer the pain and sorrow that sin brings. He will do the same thing for you, too, if you Admit you are a sinner, Believe Jesus died to provide forgiveness, and Commit your life to Him.

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