If you have read Consuming Revenge and gotten to know Lane and Danny, you soon realized that they are not perfect people. I did not intend to make them without flaws. Like all Christians, they faced fears, insecurities, anger, frustration, and many other challenges as they traveled through life as captured in this novel. Sometimes they are victorious. Sometimes they fail miserably.
Truthfully, none of the Christians you or I meet in life are perfect people. But they all share one thing in common: They are forgiven people. They all received forgiveness for their sins from the One who died upon the cross nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ.
How did they merit or earn this forgiveness? They didn’t.
Rather, they came face to face with a series of Bible truths.
The first truth is found in the Bible book of Romans, chapter 3, and verse 23. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” All people come short of the perfection required to merit their way into Heaven by their works.
Next, they learned the truth found in Romans 6:23. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Their sin merits its wages – eternal separation from God in a place the Bible refers to as Hell. This is an unpopular statement in today’s culture, but the Bible clearly teaches this truth.
A third Bible truth Lane and Danny, and all genuine Christians must encounter is good news. “But God demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). God has provided a way for our sins to be paid for – the bloody sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This sacrifice provided the way, the only way, for us to be forgiven of our sins, past, present, and future.
But how do we get this forgiveness? Romans 10:9-10 tells us the answer to that important question. “If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.”
If you would like to know more about how to have your sins forgiven, contact one of those Christians you know, reach out to a Bible-preaching church in your community, or post a message on my website, storiesbybill.com. I hope you will make the most important decision you will ever make in your life, a decision I made as a boy of nine.
Bill Shaul
Not a perfect Christian, but a forgiven one
Christian Fiction by Bill Shaul 