Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:1-3

Are you a child of God? Becoming one is the most important decision of your life. Living a good life doesn't guarantee it, and being born of Christian parents doesn't guarantee it, either. You can't be saved by good works or by natural birth in a Christian family. You must be born again by the spiritual new birth granted by God when He adopts you into His family and the Holy Spirit enters your heart to take up residence there as your teacher and guide.

How can you tell if you are born again? First, did you pray to God for adoption into His family? If you didn't, please pray this prayer to ask Him for adoption:

Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. I want to join your Heavenly family and I submit to King Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I renounce anything to do with Satan, his kingdom, and his ways. Please save me and adopt me as one of Your children. In Jesus' Name, Amen

God promised that He would not turn away anyone who came to Him, so if you prayed that prayer or a similar one at any time in your life and really meant it, you are now part of His family. The only way your petition would be denied would be if God knew that you didn't really mean it.

The Holy Spirit then will enter your heart and start to teach you and mold your character to be like Christ's character. You won't fit in as well with your unsaved friends any more. You won't enjoy the old activities that don't fit in with God's will for your life, but will start enjoying new activities that do. You'll want to spend time in Bible study and Christian fellowship with fellow believers. If you have a serious sin problem like substance abuse, you may be dramatically delivered from it.

The changes that occur in someone who has always lived far from God can be so dramatic as to make them seem like a whole new person. That is exactly what they are! When you are born again, your old sinful nature that liked to live in spiritual darkness, sin, and rebellion against everything good is replaced by a new nature that likes to live in love, peace, joy, and goodness. However, that new spiritual nature still has to deal with the old habits in your mind that you learned and used to deal with life before you were born again. That is why the Holy Spirit needs time to teach you God's ways, to replace the old habits you followed with godly new habits in keeping with Christ's character being formed in you. Becoming a Christian means joining a whole new culture based on God's ways.

That is one of the big reasons that it is harder to convince a "nice" person of their need for salvation than it is to convince an outright sinner of it. The "nice" person often thinks they are good enough in their own efforts to get to Heaven by their good attitudes and deeds toward their fellow man. The culture they are already in may be very close to true Christianity with one important difference--they still aren't saved! God has said that no one has lived a perfectly righteous life among human beings with the exception of His Son Jesus. Every one else has committed at least one sin, a lawless act, and thus must ask for the pardon that Jesus bought for him or her at the cross.

God does not want to force anyone to be His child. He wants us to make that choice willingly. However, He wants to have love and peace within His family. He doesn't want any more of the civil war that Satan started when he decided to dethrone God and take control of everything in His place. He doesn't want any more of the evils that Satan and his followers brought to the universe by their destructive actions. He is determined that He will put a stop to it by separating His children from Satan's children and confining Satan and his kingdom to an eternal prison with no escape.

The story of the prodigal son is the story of God's desire for a restored relationship with man, but only if man wants the relationship restored, too. The prodigal son was the younger son of a rich man. He decided that he wanted his share of the inheritance even before the father died, and demanded it so that he could take it and live his life as he pleased. The father complied with his request, and then waited while the son wasted his goods on wild living. Soon, the son was reduced to working as a farm hand feeding pigs, and his employer wouldn't even give him any of the pig food to keep him from starving. Eventually, the son finally realized that his father's farm hands lived better than this, and went back to him to ask for a job. Instead, the father joyfully received him and restored him to the position of a son in the family as before, with all the good things he had had given to him again.

The first humans, Adam and Eve, were created to be the rulers of the human race and given a whole planet, the Earth. Satan persuaded them that even this was not enough, and Adam decided that he wanted to rule the way he wanted to instead of obeying God. God left Adam and Eve on the Earth with their new master Satan, but with the blessings removed so that anything Adam got from then on was wrested from the Earth by hard labor. God left the planet running well enough that the human race could survive by their own work, but only blessed those who turned to him in repentence after realizing that sin was wrong and the source of the evils besetting them.

God wants to bless mankind, but he won't bless them in a state of sin. He doesn't want to encourage rebellion by letting anyone profit from it, yet he wants people to have a chance to realize the foolishness of sin and turn from it. He gladly welcomes any human prodigal back into His family when they are ready to come to Him in repentence. God is not obliged to pardon and save anyone. He offers salvation to mankind as a free gift, bought by Jesus at the cross, but he won't force you to accept it. He only wants children who will voluntarily live with Him in love and peace in Heaven.

He is also not obliged to provide another Heaven for Satan and his rebellious children to live in. The Lake of Fire is going to be a place of punishment for them based on what they have been doing to God and His children. Just as an earthly prison is a hellish place because of the attitudes and actions of the people confined there and not because of the prison buildings themselves, the Lake of Fire is going to be a hellish place largely because of the attitudes and actions of the beings confined there.

Satan likes to say that it isn't really a free choice for people to choose between Heaven and Hell. It is as free a choice as people make on the Earth when they choose between law abiding attitudes and behavior and law breaking attitudes and behavior. No one can force you to be law abiding if you choose otherwise, but the society you offend can lock you up in prison away from the law abiding citizens if you choose to commit crimes. Similarly, God can urge you to obey His commandments to live in love, justice, and mercy with Him and your fellow beings, but if you choose otherwise He is within His rights as Creator to lock you up away from His loving, obedient children. In fact, as Creator it is His responsibility to His children to do exactly that to protect them from you.

Please choose to obey God and join His family. He only wants you to learn wisdom and self-discipline so that you live in love with everyone else in the family. Now is the time to make this decision before time runs out. Please pray this prayer:

Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. I want to join your Heavenly family and I submit to King Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I renounce anything to do with Satan, his kingdom, and his ways. Please save me and adopt me as one of Your children. In Jesus' Name, Amen