A New Leaf or a New Life?
Do you desperately need to make a change in your life? Are you sick and tired of the bondage in which you find yourself? Alcohol, drugs, sexual immorality, workaholism, and people’s opinions are just a few of the common chains that can hold us down. Often you hear someone say that they just need to “Turn Over a New Leaf.” Especially now as we sit on the verge of a New Year.
The trouble with Turning Over a New Leaf is that all it takes is a slight change in the wind to flip that leaf right back over to the side you tried to leave behind. Many despair of ever finding real, lasting freedom from the destructive habits that have held them fast for many years. Is there any hope?
I can tell you with absolute confidence that the answer is YES! But first you must realize that your hope will not be found in a self-help book, 12 step program, or putting on a new Positive Mental Attitude. Your only hope is in a person – Jesus Christ the Son of God.
There is good news and bad news; you must embrace both if you are to receive the new life of which I am talking. First, you must realize that you are by nature a wicked person. You have broken God’s holy commandments which is called sin, and this sin has separated you from the God who made you. Furthermore, the result of this rebellion against God is eternal punishment for your sins in hell. You are at this very moment headed there. Just keep living the way you’re living.
That is the bad news. The good news is that God loves you and would rather send His only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and take the punishment for your sins by dying on the cross than to live without you. Your sins require that you spend eternity in hell, but the good news is that if you turn away from your sins and trust the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved from hell and given a new life of peace with God and the power to overcome the sin that is destroying your life and your soul.
Hell was created for the Devil and his angels not for you. But God will send you there if you refuse God’s free offer of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. He must because sin has to be punished and there will not be any rebels in heaven. Only God’s children who have turned from their sins and received Jesus Christ by faith.
The choice is yours – your sin…or your Savior. Which will you choose?