On Tuesday I had the mighty privilege of leading someone to Christ during Healing on the Streets. Warren (pastor of Lynn Vineyard) and I had got talking to a lady who was interested in healing and she shared a problem she’d like freedom from. We could have prayed for her for just that one issue, but ultimately it is in relationship with Christ we get freedom.

John 8:32 “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ESV
Romans 6:22 shows us that when we become Christians we get set free from being slaves to sin… “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life”

I could tell the lady was well up for life change, so I launched into sharing the gospel with her. For a moment I had to think how to do that simply and without jargon. My favourite way at the moment is using the 4 points!

1) God loves you
2) You’ve really messed up
3) Jesus died for you
4) You need to make a choice

Very simple! And with a few memorised Bible verses we took the dear lady through to crossing the line of faith and prayed for her to be set free from the problems, she needed freedom from!

Here’s a bit more detail

1) God loves you

If you’re a member of the human race then God loves you; not just with any old ‘love’ but with a love that will last forever (Jeremiah 31v3) and one which drove him to give his own son, Jesus to die in your place. As it says in 1John 3v16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
You see love is not just something God does, it’s what He is. He defines the true meaning of love. In 1John 4v16 it simply says “God is love”.

2) We’ve really messed up

There’s a lot of evil and sadness in the world. You may ask how can there be a loving God with some much suffering around. The simple answer is that God didn’t make us robots, but He did gave us a choice how to live. Much of the sadness and evil in the world is due to our wrong choices.

Romans 3v23 says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Sin is when we say things, do things or even think things that are wrong. We’ve all messed up. The consequences of messing up can be broken friendships, loss of trust and so on. But the fact we have messed up has also separated us from God. . Isaiah 59v2 says “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
The penalty for messing up is that we all die Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death”

So we all have a big problem. We have all sinned and because God is perfect, the fact we have messed up means we must all face spiritual death and eternal separation from God; what the Bible calls Hell!
If you’re unhappy about this you’ll be pleased to know that because of His great love for you, God was even more unhappy with the situation (2 Peter 3v9)

3) Jesus died for you

In the Old Testament times God allowed people to sacrifice an animal when they had messed up so the shed blood would be a substitute. Trouble is we mess up so much, we would have been sacrificing a lot of animals. God had planned a permanent solution. The ultimate sacrifice that could pay the punishment for everyone’s sin and see justice done. The plan was for Jesus to come, be born a human baby, live a perfect life and then die on our behalf to pay the penalty for our messing up.
Jesus loves you so much, he died a horrific death on the cross for you Hebrews 12v2 says “…for the joy set before Him [Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame…”.

It’s summed up in the most well-known Bible verse: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, he sent His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

4)You need to choose

We have to choose to believe in Jesus.esus gave His own life as a punishment for our messing up. We don’t deserve it. It isn’t ‘fair’ but that’s how much God loves you.
Christianity is the offer of a free gift of right relationship with God. To “claim the free gift” we need to ask for it!
Romans 10v9-10 says “…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.”

Doing that is what we call crossing the line of faith – it’s that moment when what Jesus did for you is applied to your life permanently!

If you would like to receive God’s gift of forgiveness and enjoy a right relationship with him that will mean freedom from the power of sin – then just pray a pray like this..

Dear God
Thank you that you love me. I have really messed up my life not following you. Thank you Jesus for dying for me and rising again. Please forgive me and be my Lord now and forever more. Amen

On Tuesday at Healing on the Streets King’s Lynn I was wearing an aide memoire – a four points t-shirt available here!