Letter of Love

Illustrations by Paul Agner

The universe and everything in it shouts, “There is a God!” (Romans 1:18–21). But the universe can’t tell us how it was made. It can’t tell us very much about its history. And it can’t tell us about how we can be saved from our sin.

For that, God has given us the Bible. It is like a beautiful letter of love from God for us.

God has told us that he created all things in six actual days, that it was originally a “very good” place, and that the first man, Adam, disobeyed the Creator, corrupting the entire creation (Genesis 1–3; Romans 8:20–22). God said that the punishment for sin is death (Micah 5:2; Genesis 2:17).

After Adam sinned, God, in his great love for his people, promised he would one day send someone to save them from their sin (Genesis 3:15).

From the time Adam and Eve sinned, everyone born into their family (all humans—including you and me) is born a sinner and disobeys God’s commands (Romans 3:23). And we all deserve the punishment for sin: death and eternal separation from God’s goodness in a terrible place called hell (Romans 6:23; Matthew 10:28).

We need someone to take care of that punishment for us. And because God loves people he created in his image, he sent someone to do just that! Four thousand years after Adam sinned, God the Father sent his Son Jesus Christ to earth. He was the one who came to fulfill the promise God had given Adam way back in the beginning!

Jesus is God and was born in a human body, and he lived a perfect life—never sinning even once! But, about 2,000 years ago, he was put to death on the cross, paying the penalty for sin that we deserved.

But here is the power in all of that—Jesus rose from the dead two days later, showing that God had accepted his sacrifice. When we say we are sorry for our sins (repent) and believe that Jesus died in our place, we receive the gift of salvation from the punishment our sin deserved (Acts 20:21; Ephesians 2:8–9; Romans 10:9–10). We become a child of God forever! We will live forever with him in heaven! Only the Bible tells us about God’s great love for his children and how he has provided a way for us to spend forever with him.