There is one God who always does what is right and is always fair. He is totally without sin or wrongdoing.
We humans were created by this One God. But, we turned from God and disobeyed Him and we all are caught up in doing wrong and evil things, which is sin. We are not without sin like God is.
This is a problem for us because God does not tolerate anyone who sins. One day God will judge, condemn, and punish all who are not perfect and sinless. And, no one can do anything to make up for the wrong they do.
This puts all of us in an impossibly bad situation with God that none of us can get out of by our own desire or effort.
But, God also loves all He has created, including us who sin against Him. Though God rightly finds us guilty and judges and condemns us for our sin, He has also made a way so that we will not be punished for our wrongdoing. Instead, we can gain peace and forgiveness and happiness from God.
God graciously and lovingly fixes our problem for us because we cannot fix our problem ourselves.
God’s way of rescuing us from being punished for our sin is to punish someone else in our place for what we did wrong.
This is fair because the One that God punished was Himself. God punished His Son, Jesus Christ, in our place on the cross.
Jesus was sinless and lived a life of perfect righteousness and perfect obedience to God, but not for His own benefit – for ours.
Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty of sin, but not for himself because He had no sin. Since He had no sin, His payment of death was not required for Himself.
And so, His death can pay for the sins of others, and that is what happened on the cross. Jesus has done for us what we couldn’t possibly do for ourselves.
Since He did not deserve to die, He didn’t stay dead. God’s proof that all of this is true is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
God will make His punishment of His Son count for His punishment of us, and therefore forgive us our sins – if – we believe what God says about Jesus and ourselves.
We are forgiven and declared to be good and righteous not because of our intentions, nor our desires, and not because of what we do.
We are forgiven because Jesus paid for our sin with His death. And Jesus’ payment for our sin is applied to us by simply believing that Jesus and His death alone pay our penalty of sin.
The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust, your faith, your belief, in Jesus and what He has done – and in Him alone.
If you trust in Jesus to pay the penalty of your sin then God changes who you are and adopts you into His family and forgives all of your sins, and you have begun your life with God for eternity.