The God of the universe loves you and passionately desires to have a personal relationship with you. His love is so extreme that He made the ultimate sacrifice of sending His son, Jesus, to die so that you could have a personal relationship with Him. God offers you a new life filled with purpose, guidance, and significance, both now and for eternity, if you choose to stop living for yourself and embrace Jesus’ way of life.

The Bible tells us that God created mankind and placed them in a perfect world designed for love, relationships, and co-rulers over the earth. However, Satan, who detests God and His creation, convinced Adam and Eve (the first humans) that they could be like God, knowing good and evil and choosing to self-rule and serve their own interests. Their choice rejected God, resulting in eternal separation and spiritual death, which forever broke their relationship with Him and the perfect world He had created for them. God condemned their choice as sin, and its consequences, including a hereditary sin nature, were passed down through all humanity.

Yet God responded not with abandonment, but with sacrifical love. Despite our sin, God’s love for us and His desire to reclaim His creation, led Him to sacrificially send us His son, Jesus. Through Jesus, God’s Kingdom reign and rule were brought to earth, and a way was provided for us to restore our relationship with Him. Jesus’s sacrificial death and resurrection from the grave paid the penalty for our sins, broke the power of Satan’s sin hold on us, and restored our ability to choose a personal and eternal relationship with God through His son Jesus. 

God offers His forgiveness and relationship with Him to anyone who gratefully chooses to reject their sinful self-rule way of living and fully trust their life to Jesus. By doing so, they submit to living Jesus’ way of life. At the moment of this choice, God forgives their sin, places His spirit within them, and empowers them with His strength, peace, and hope to live a new unending meaningful life. His spirit enables them to accomplish God’s plan for their life through their relationship with His Son. Jesus said, “If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” (Matt. 10:39 MSG)

The Bible teaches that Jesus will one day return to Earth to defeat Satan’s evil and restore the world to God’s original intent of love, mercy, justice, and peace. Until then, we will face times of difficulty, heartache, and suffering as we live and serve Him in a broken, sin-filled world that operates contrary to His Kingdom way of life. However, by maintaining a relationship with Jesus and trusting Him with our lives, we find ultimate strength, joy, satisfaction, meaning, and purpose that no other way of life can provide.

God has given us a choice: to continue living a sinful self-rule way of life or in grateful submission, trust our life to His Son Jesus. Living a life serving ourselves, separated from God, ultimately leads to a meaningless, empty, lonely, and disappointed existence, resulting in permanent eternal separation from Him and His love.

This is a significant choice that everyone must carefully consider and make. Jesus emphasized that there is a cost to accepting His gift of an unending, real life, and we must consider the cost before making our choice.

"Jesus died for everyone so that those who choose his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them."

2 Corinthians 5:15

Jesus said  “If you want to follow me, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost. . .”  

Luke 14:23-28

See a list bible verse references that tell Good News story on the Resources page.

In response to God's undeserved grace, a follower lives in humble gratitude and daily surrender. Their life is no longer centered on personal control or self-righteousness, but on knowing Christ and following Him. They read and study the Bible as their authority and guide for living real, unending new life following Jesus. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they seek to reflect Jesus’ character in how they think, act, and relate to others. 

Through Christ, God established His Kingdom reign and rule on earth—a new way of living under His authority. Christ followers participate in this spiritual Kingdom by loving God wholeheartedly, serving others selflessly, and inviting them to a relationship with Him. They place people above personal gain, find dignity in serving rather than being served, and identify first as Christ followers in every role they occupy. e.g. student, employee, parent, citizen.

Ultimately, a Christ follower finds lasting purpose, joy, and blessings by loosing their own way of life and living under Christ’s reign & rule.  (2 Peter 1:3-10)

In response to God's undeserved grace, a follower lives in humble gratitude and daily surrender. Their life is no longer centered on personal control or self-righteousness, but on knowing Christ and following Him. They read and study the Bible as their authority and guide for living real, unending new life following Jesus. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they seek to reflect Jesus’ character in how they think, act, and relate to others. 

Through Christ, God established His Kingdom reign and rule on earth—a new way of living under His authority. Christ followers participate in this spiritual Kingdom by loving God wholeheartedly, serving others selflessly, and inviting them to a relationship with Him. They place people above personal gain, find dignity in serving rather than being served, and identify first as Christ followers in every role they occupy. e.g. student, employee, parent, citizen.

Ultimately, a Christ follower finds lasting purpose, joy, and blessings by loosing their own way of life and living under Christ’s reign & rule.  (2 Peter 1:3-10)

If you willing now to submit your life to Jesus and to commit to following Him, you can begin a new life right now!

 If the below words reflect your heart in choosing Christ, you can use them to guide your conversation with God. 

• God I understand now that my choice to live life my way is called sin and that it has eternally separated me from you. 

• From this day forward I gratefully choose to submit my life to you and trust in Jesus’ death as payment for the self-serving sinful way I have lived. 

• Thank you for your great love and mercy in sacrificing your son Jesus, for forgiving me of my sin, and for giving me the gift of a new unending and meaningful life with you. 

• I will trust you to give me your power and strength to daily deny my old way of living and to serve you and your Kingdom from this day forward. 

• Teach me through your Word (the Bible) to live the life you have for me.

As with other meaningful relationships and personal development, It will take effort, time, and  experience to develop your relationship with God and live daily in full devotion to Him. (Romans  12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:8-11) 

The Bible teaches that at the moment you receive God’s forgiveness and surrender your life to Him, that you are re-born spiritually. (John 3:1-6) The result of this new birth is that you receive  God’s spirit. Your spiritual rebirth begins a process of re-forming your heart and mind so that your  new nature will be to live like Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17, Galatians 2:20) As you do, He begins  to work through you to love and serve others as He did modeled for us while on earth. (2 Peter 1:3-10, Colossians  3:1-4, 10-11, Philippians 2:5-11) 

To begin Your Development:  

Read the Bible   

• The Bible is the Word of your creator; it is our soul’s “owner’s manual.” It’s instructions are the  very things humanity was originally created to do. The Bible isn’t merely intellectual instruction  but active intervention into the spiritual and mental dimensions of our very existence.  

• Read the Bible daily to get to know God more intimately. There is no real knowing of God unless  we know him through his Word. Otherwise we risk creating a God out of our imagination. 

• Read the Bible to receive God’s wisdom for living. Read it for inspiration, education,  encouragement, guidance, and awareness of the areas God desires to re-make you as you  follow and live out Jesus’s teachings. (Psalms 119:11, Proverbs 30:5, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, John  17:17, Hebrews 4:12–13, Luke 11:27–28, John 15:7-11)  

• See the Bible Reading Plan located on the Resources page.

Talk to God  

Talk to God to get to know Him more intimately and allow Him to reveal areas in your life that need to be transformed to be more like Jesus. Make it a habit to talk with God about everything. Start each day by opening your heart fully to Him from the moment you wake up. If you do not invite God into your day first, you may end up handling life only from your own understanding. But when you begin by meeting with God in private prayer, His presence will shape everything you do, and it will be seen in the way you live your life. 

Prayer is not just about asking God for things—that is only the beginning of prayer. True prayer is about entering into intimate conversation with God. Prayer is where we are spiritually renewed and where we are conformed to be more like Jesus. God changes the way we think and feel. He moves beyond our ordinary understanding and transforms our attitude toward the very things we pray about. 

Begin your daily pray in praise. 

Praise Him as: 

• King of the universe

• Provider of your physical and spiritual needs 

• Forgiver of your sins

• Comforter in times of trouble and sadness 

Ask Him: 

• For strength and guidance in your life to fulfill His Kingdom work in your life. 

• To reveal and help change wrong attitudes and behaviors that are hurting yourself or others. 

• To forgive you when you choose to do things your way instead of His way.

• To guard your mind against impure thoughts towards others. 

Train Your Mind

When you choose to follow Jesus, you are choosing to live under God’s rule instead of your own.  But even after making that choice, your old way of thinking does not disappear right away. You will  want to follow Jesus, but old thoughts, habits, and desires still show up. This struggle is normal. It  is part of growing. 

When Jesus taught what is known as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), He explained what  life looks like under God’s rule. But He did not only talk about outward behavior. He went deeper.  He said anger begins in the heart before it becomes harmful actions. He said lust begins in the  heart before it becomes sin. He taught that worry shows a lack of trust in God. He told His  followers to love their enemies and forgive others. Jesus was teaching that real change begins in  the mind and heart. 

The Bible says we are to “bring every thought into obedience to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). In  simple terms, this means we learn to stop and ask: Is this thought leading me toward Jesus’ way,  or away from it? 

The Bible also teaches that we should not copy the thinking patterns of the world. Instead, God  changes us by changing the way we think (Romans 12:2). The world teaches us to put ourselves  first, chase success, hold grudges, and worry about everything. But Jesus teaches humility,  forgiveness, generosity, and trust. To live the Kingdom way, your thinking must change over time. 

This is not something you do alone. God gives you His Holy Spirit to guide you. The Bible explains  that there is a struggle inside every believer. Your old nature pulls you toward selfish choices, but  the Holy Spirit leads you toward God’s way (Galatians 5:16–17). That inner struggle does not mean  you are failing. It means you are learning. 

As you choose again and again to follow Jesus’ teaching, your mind begins to change. You start  thinking differently about anger, money, relationships, and worry. You begin to see and live life the  way Jesus describes it in the Sermon on the Mount. Over time, your old thoughts will not control  you the way they once did. Instead, your mind will begin to reflect the values of God’s Kingdom. 

Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount by saying that the person who hears His words and puts  them into practice is like someone who builds a house on solid rock. When storms come, that  house stands firm. 

When your thinking is shaped by Jesus’ teaching, your life becomes steady and strong — even  during hard times and you reflect His image to others.

Serve Others & Share Your Story

The Bible says that as a follower of Jesus, you are His ambassador. This means you represent Him and His Kingdom mission. Part of that role is sharing His story and your story—how He is changing your life. (2  Corinthians 5:14–20, Acts 28:18–20) 

As a follower of Christ, your daily mission is to:  

Seek opportunities to share your story. Share with others how God is giving you new life, and  invite them to consider trusting Him with their lives too. (Matthew 6:24–34, Psalm 37:5)  

Live in a way that reflects His Kingdom. Jesus taught a different way of living when He came  to earth. As you develop spirituality, your life should show that same way —the kind of life He described in Matthew chapters 5–7. 

Serve others and show God’s love. Look for ways, even small ones, to care for the people you  meet each day at work, school, or in daily life. Show them that they matter to God and that they  matter to you. Live in such a loving way that they begin to ask why you do. (Matthew 5:14–16) 

The Bible is God’s true and living word, which tells one unified, God-inspired story: God creates a good world, humanity turns away from Him, and God lovingly works to restore them through a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

The Bible is a collection of books of inspired literature, divided into two main parts: the Old and New Testaments. The books include history, law, poetry and songs, wisdom writings, prophecy, letters, and Gospel narratives. God uses these different forms of literature to communicate truth, shape faith, and reveal Himself in ways people can understand. 

In the Old Testament is found the story of the beginning. God creates everything—not out of need, but out of love. The world is good, ordered, and full of purpose. Humanity is made in God’s image, meant to live in relationship with Him, to reflect His character, and to steward creation. God walks with His people. There is no shame, fear, or death—only relationships of trust. However, humanity chooses to trust itself rather than God. This act of rebellion fractures the relationship at the heart of creation. Sin enters the world, bringing separation from God, suffering, and death. Yet even in judgment, God speaks hope: this brokenness will not be the final word. Redemption is already promised. 

God reveals His holiness, love, and faithfulness by choosing the Jewish people as the channel through whom He would make Himself known to a godless world. He calls them into covenant relationship, gives His Law to show what life with Him looks like, and sends prophets who call the people back to faithfulness when they rebel, while promising a coming Savior. These writings reveal both God’s patience and humanity’s deep need for redemption.

In the New Testament, the impossible happens. God becomes human in His son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully God and fully man. He lives the life humanity could not—perfect obedience, perfect love. Jesus announces the Kingdom of God on earth and calls people to turn to God and join His Kingdom. He miraculously heals the sick, forgives sinners, welcomes the outcast, to prove His identity and reveal the Father’s heart. He teaches that the greatest commandments are love: love God completely, and love others sacrificially. Jesus is rejected, betrayed, and condemned. Though innocent, He willingly suffers death on a cross. There, He takes upon Himself the full weight of human sin. The punishment humanity deserves is absorbed by Him. Justice and mercy meet. This is the center of the story. Christ dies for us—in our place—to reconcile us to God. On the third day, Jesus rises from the dead. Sin is conquered. Death is broken. The resurrection declares that the sacrifice was accepted and that new, full, and meaningful life in His Kingdom is now possible—not just someday, but now. God’s people are then sent into the world to proclaim this good news and invite follow Jesus’ way of life. The story moves forward through the Church—imperfect yet empowered—until the day Christ returns. 

The Bible story ends where it began, but greater: a renewed creation, God dwelling fully with His people on a renewed earth, no more death, sorrow, or sin, and love reigning forever. 

The Bible is not only a story to believe but a means of knowing God personally. Read prayerfully, it teaches who God is, what He has done in Christ, and how to follow Jesus in everyday life. Through the bible, Christ followers are formed in faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, and equipped to love God and others.