Exploring Christianity
The greatest truth in all of life is that God loves you and wants you to enter into an intimate relationship with Him. So the most important thing a person can do in life is to enter into that kind of relationship with God.
 
A relationship with God begins with you seeing yourself the way that God does. God says, on the one hand, that you are a creature who has tremendous dignity and value because you have been created in his image (Genesis 1:26-27). He also says that His image in you has been marred and distorted by sin (rebellion against His perfect standard), and that every human being is a sinner in word, thought, and deed (Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23; 5:12).
 
Since God is perfectly holy and just, he can neither enter into a relationship with us while we remain sinners nor can he allow our sin to remain unpunished (Exodus 34:6-7; Habakkuk 1:13). In Romans 6:23 the Bible says that the penalty of this sin is death (eternal separation from God). This is very bad news. Not only are each and every one of us without hope and unable to help ourselves, we are all destined to be forever apart from our creator.
 
But there is good news: God has done everything he can do to ensure that no one would have to spend eternity apart from Him. God loves us, and does not want anyone to live without Him (2 Peter 3:9). The Bible says that only a human's death makes an acceptable payment for human sin (Hebrews 10:4). And only someone who was not guilty of sin himself could pay the death penalty on someone else's behalf. Since there would never be a mere man who would ever be able to be sinless, God himself intervened. Two thousand years ago, God Himself became incarnate as a man. God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and lived among us (John 1:14; 3:16). He experienced life with all of its challenges just as we do, and Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life (Hebrews 4:14-16). At the end of his life, those who hated Jesus crucified him, not knowing that their evil act was serving God's good purpose of making salvation and eternal life (an eternal relationship with God) available to all people (Acts 2:22-24).
 
But he did not remain dead. Within three days of his crucifixion, Jesus arose and was seen by more than 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:3-8), proving that God had accepted his death as making the payment for humanity's sin. The debt had been paid.
 
This means you can now enjoy a relationship with God. Your sin no longer stands as a barrier between you and God. But in order to experience that relationship for yourself, you must do two things. First, you must believe that Jesus paid the death penalty you deserved for your sin. Second, you must place your trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope and rescuer. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are you saved through faith, not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." You can't work your way into heaven. Salvation is a gift (grace) that you must accept by faith.