Our Most Important Decision In Life

On a recent forum I was surfing a young person posted this very poignant and relevant-to-the-times statement.

I find myself here in the middle of the night, searching for a place to look for guidance. I came across this place.

I'm 19 years old, I grew up in the Catholic church. I never took my faith seriously, but I always respected it for what it was. These days, I find myself losing touch with it, I find myself having serious doubts about what this world is and if there is anything behind it. I got on my knees and asked God to give me a sign last week. I don't know, maybe I'm looking too hard, or maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I find myself losing sleep at night thinking about all the questions in this world.

I don't know what anyone could say back to this, but I'm looking for any kind of help or advice, I just don't know what to do anymore.
Dab06

Since I believe that this statement represents the dilemma of many people today, I took it to my prayer time to seek my Father's thoughts about this situation. The following was my response to this posting, based on what I believed He was showing me:

Hi and welcome to our forum...and CONGRATULATIONS on responding to the conviction God is putting on your heart (which probably started in earnest with your plea to Him on your knees last week) by posting your dilemma on this site and requesting advice and assistance; I assure you, you are in the process of making the most important decision of your life! Jesus once said "Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you, ask and you shall receive, that your joy be made complete." You are seeking peace, love, hope and a purpose for your life, and Jesus Christ is the manifestation of those desires.

The fact of the matter is, Dab, you have a very important decision to make in your life concerning God and His plan for this world. Fortunately, your status as a Catholic (or any other denomination) or as a person (how good or bad, smart or dumb, rich or poor you are) is not the issue at this point. The question is, what have you done with Jesus? What I mean is this: You probably remember from your catechism or from the weekly readings of the Gospel in church that in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John Jesus told us “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”(verse 6) Also, do you remember from religion classes what Jesus told Martha just before He brought her brother, Lazarus, back from the dead? He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”(John 11:25-26) You see, Dab, Jesus was either telling the truth or telling or lie, or He was some kind of kook. What you have to decide is which one is it. If you believe He was telling a lie or was just a crazy prophet, then we can’t help you much here because we believe that the only help God has to offer us in this world is through His Son and our relationship to Him, through His Holy Spirit, and through his Word (the Bible). On the other hand, if you believe that Jesus is telling the truth, then you need to become born again, as He explained to Nicodemus in the 3rd Chapter of John, by inviting Him to come live in your life.

You see, the REAL you is a spirit being who has a soul (made up of your mind, will and emotions) which lives in a body: Picture an astronaut making a space walk in his space suit. The problem is that when we are born into this world, our spirit is separated from God because of the actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (if you were brought up Catholic, then I’m sure you know the story); essentially, our spirit is “dead” to God. From the moment Adam caused that death (separation from God’s Spirit), God so loved Mankind that He put into effect a plan which would eliminate the barrier between Him and Man and would reunite His and their spirits, thus restoring eternal life to those who would receive Him. That plan was to provide His Son, Jesus, as a human and spiritual sacrifice to eliminate the barrier of unpunished sin that stood between us and Him and then to resurrect Him from the dead so that His Spirit could walk the earth today through the new spirit which is created in us when we receive what He has done for us and invite Him into our heart. Someone described it this way: Jesus gave His Life for us, so that He could give His Life to us, so that He could live His Life through us.

Here’s a metaphor to help you to understand the situation a little better: Suppose you had a friend or acquaintance who contracted cancer and died. Suppose further that you had the ability to restore life to that person and bring him/her back to life. What are the two issues you would have to resolve in order to bring that person back to life? If you brought him back to life without curing the cancer, he would just very quickly die again. On the other hand, if you just cured the cancer without giving him life, you would just have a healed corpse on your hands. You see what I mean? You would have to remove the cancer and then restore that person’s spirit to make the resurrection stick. In the illustration, the dead person represents all of mankind and the cancer represents sin, beginning with Adam and Eves’ unbelief (the Bible says that everything that does not come from faith in God is sin), and the punishment God required for sin before Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross over 2,000 years ago, He satisfied the punishment due for all the sins of all mankind for all time (past, present and future), and when He rose from the dead, He restored the opportunity for every person in this world to have a personal relationship with God (in other words, Life) through His spiritual presence in those who believe in Him. That’s what the Scripture you see on the posters at sporting events on TV (John 3:16) says: “That God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that he who would believe on Him would have eternal life.”

Why is all this relevant to you? Because you want and need God’s help, and it sounds like you could also use a good dose of peace and hope. But God can’t help you if you haven’t accepted what He’s done for you through his Son, Jesus Christ, because you are spiritually separated from Him (in other words, dead to Him). In the Bible, Jesus said that we are either of our Father God or our father the devil. The Word says that when we allow the Spirit of Christ Jesus to come into our life, He makes our spirit alive with His, thereby making us children of God and heirs to His Kingdom. (This is also known as being saved or being born again.) Then we have access, through faith, to all the resources and promises (found in the New Testament of the Bible) of God to assist us with life in this world! And when God starts moving on your behalf, and believe me, He will, you’ll be awed at the difference it makes!

Here is what the Romans 10:9-11 says: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." Why don’t you get alone with God and make that confession, assuring eternal life with Him...and then ask Him for help and direction in developing that relationship with Him. Ask Him to lead you to a church or Bible study of true Believers who can help teach you and guide you in His ways. If I’m wrong, you’ve lost nothing; but if I’m right, and I know I am, you’ve gained everything.

You can download a free copy of a book called The Prayer Directed Life at www.theprayerdirectedlife.com to help get you started with your new Life if you like. May God bless you and direct you in your quest.