The Good News website!
Why do you exist? When you have the answer to this question, then your life will be truly meaningful and significant.
It is so great that you are here on earth! In the main story of this website, you are invited to go on a journey of discovery about the purpose of your life. On this page you can read the summary.
Chapter 1 ~ Why your life is important
When you take a look at nature, you see how wonderful everything is. There are so many different colors, shapes and smells. Did you know, for example, that there are hundreds of thousands of different kinds of flowers?
Our body is a walking miracle. It is built with billions of cells. Each cell contains an incredible amount of information. This information is called DNA. If you were to write down all this information, you would need more than 2500 books. Everything in nature is very sophisticated. Many organisms and processes cannot exist without each other. It is just not possible that all this originated by chance.
Chapter 2 ~ No accident?
Our planet, the plants, the animals and the people are amazingly well constructed. We learned in Chapter 1 that this cannot have happened by chance. There must be a design for it. And a design does not exist without a designer. We call this designer our Creator. If there is a Creator, do you want to know who He is? Do you want to know if He created you for a purpose? There is one problem: we cannot see Him. So how can we discover the truth about Him? After all, there are thousands of religions to choose from, all of which present a different picture of the Creator.
Searching for the Truth
To discover the right image of the Creator you have to search for the truth yourself. The Creator doesn’t show Himself in a material way. Still it is important to find out for what purpose He made us. If you don’t know your purpose, you will most likely miss your destination!
Chapter 3 ~ The Designer of life
The Creator surely has good reasons why we cannot see Him. He is not a material being, but the creator of matter. By observing what He has created, we can discover some of His characteristics. After all, a design shows something of its designer.
The first thing you can observe in nature is that the Creator is very creative. He created the universe, the earth and nature. Everything with an enormous amount of detail and amazing diversity. For example, there are more than 400,000 different species of plants. Each with their own colors and shapes and smells. Us humans are walking miracles of engineering. Scientists have studied our bodies for centuries, but still have a long way to go to understand how everything works.
If you know anything about the laws of nature, you will understand that the Creator is also a designer of cause and effect. The laws of nature always function in the same way. For example, the force of gravity always pulls you down. So you can assume that the Creator is reliable. If He were not, His creation would turn into chaos.
We can also conclude that there is a foundation for what we consider right and wrong. These are not rules that we humans have made up ourselves. Then there would be many versions of good and evil. The foundation of our morality must therefore have been defined by our Creator.
Humans have special abilities that other creatures in nature do not have. We can think about our existence. We can have relationships with other people and we can love other people. Therefore, the Creator is also the source of relationships and love.
Because we can think about our existence, we also want to understand the purpose of our existence. All people are consciously or unconsciously searching for an answer to this question. As long as we do not know the answer, we will experience an empty feeling. We often fill this emptiness with distractions or with things that try to mute this feeling.
Chapter 4 ~ We can choose
We might think that the Creator no longer interferes with His creation. After all, we do not see Him and there is much misery in the world. In this chapter we will take a look at our own responsibility. People have been given the special quality by the Creator to make choices for themselves. Therefore we have the option to give respect and appreciation to our Creator. But we can also choose to do what we think is right or pleasant for ourselves.
Not all of us choose to accept and respect the presence of our Creator. This can also cause people to have no respect for other people. The consequences of this can be devastating. Hopefully you are not a murderer or a hateful person. But every person does, consciously or unconsciously, hurt other people. Every human being sometimes rebels against his Creator. We will discover later on that even small choices can have big consequences.
Should the Creator intervene? If so, when should he do so? When the Creator would intervene every moment, would there still be freedom of choice?
Are the answers to be found in a religion?
There are thousands of religions on our planet. All claim to represent the truth. Some people assume that all religions show a part of the truth. But that is impossible if you consider the great differences between all religions. For example, some believe in one god, others in millions of gods. Yet other religions assume that we ourselves are a god. If all this were true, there cannot be one truth.
Yet, it is important to discover the truth about our existence. The Creator has made us for a reason. So it is also important to discover the reason why we were created. Otherwise you will miss your destination.
Chapter 5 ~ Discover the truth
From here on I want to tell you about the Truth I have discovered about our Creator. From now on I will also call Him God, because that is the most common name for the Creator worldwide.
I have discovered the Truth about the Creator through the Bible. If you don’t want to have anything to do with the Bible, I can understand that you want to stop reading here. However, I would like to invite you to continue reading. I hope that I can share with you some knowledge that is important for your life and future.
The way, the truth and life
Please do your own research for theTruth. I would like to help you by telling you a bit about the Creator. A Creator who is involved in His creation and who even has a personal goal in your life! I want to challenge you to test for yourself if this is indeed the truth.
If you are sincerely seeking for the truth about your Creator, ask Him for yourself if He will show you the truth.
If you would first like to know more about the Bible as a reliable and relevant book, read this article about why the Bible is so different from all other books.
I would like to give you some quotes from the Bible to think about. Try to discover for yourself if God, your Creator, has a plan for you. I know that He will show you that He cares for you and that you are very valuable!
What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. Matthew 6:33
If the God of the Bible really is your Creator, then it is obvious that you would like to find out what His purpose with your life is. After all, He is the one who created you. However, we humans are also very stubborn. We want to decide for ourselves the things we do and the way our life is lived. Many people have others tell them how they should live, without having thought about it and figured out for themselves what the purpose is of living. I hope you will take the effort to find out for yourself.
We are not robots or slaves
This is the core of it. Our lives are full of choices that show how we are in life. The Bible is full of examples of people making choices. Some people choose to live as God intended and others choose not to.
This is what makes us humans so special in the world of creation. God did not create us like robots who do precisely as they are programmed. Neither are we slaves who can only do what their master told them to do. Does the great Creator need to have slaves or robots? No, He has given us the opportunity to have a choice. But why?
He has given us this freedom because He wants to share His love with us. One cannot give love to dead things, not to robots or slaves, but to beings who can reciprocate this love. He expects from us sincere attention. No forced attention, but He wants an answer from our hearts to His love towards us!
God lets Himself be discovered
I have experienced that God lets Himself be discovered when you are searching seriously for answers and when you want to find the Truth about Him.
You will search for me, and when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me. Jeremiah 29:13
In the Bible you can learn that God created everything to show how great and magnificent He is. But there is more… He made us with the unique ability to choose for ourselves. We can therefore give Him the honor He deserves. God allows Himself to be found by those who sincerely search for Him;
But there in these other lands you will look for the Lord your God. And if you look for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. Deuteronomy 4:29
I have discovered that God is a God of relations. He loves the people He created one by one. If He is our creator, then He deserves our attention and respect. When we ignore another human being, there is no relationship. All the more it is like this when we are dealing with our Creator. I know from personal experience that God has attention for you and me. The only question is whether you will give Him attention in return.
I hope that the desire has been awakened in you and that you will sincerely seek God. He will be found. That is His promise!
Chapter 6 ~ Our problem
Because of our ability to choose, there is also a dilemma. We may trust that God is a reliable and righteous creator. Because of our freedom of choice we often do certain things that God does not want us to do. We call these sins. Because God is not only loving, but also righteous, He cannot turn a blind eye to our mistakes.
The most important choice we can make is to honor Him or not. By ignoring Him, we certainly do not give Him honor. But even when we do our utmost to respect Him, we often make faults by doing things that dishonor Him. Take an honest look at your own heart. Do you always do what your Creator pleases? There is no man who can say that he always does God’s will.
Because of our ability to choose, there is also a dilemma. We may trust that God is a reliable and righteous creator. Because of our freedom of choice we often do certain things that God does not want us to do. We call these sins. Because God is not only loving, but also righteous, He cannot turn a blind eye to our mistakes.
The most important choice we can make is to honor Him or not. By ignoring Him, we certainly do not give Him honor. But even when we do our utmost to respect Him, we often make the fault by doing things that dishonor Him. Take an honest look at your own heart. Do you always do what your Creator pleases? There is no man who can say that he always does God’s will.
But everyone has gone the wrong way. Everyone has turned bad. No one does anything good. No, not one person! Psalms 14:3 & Romans 3:11-12
If you are in a relationship and your partner cheats on you, the relationship is permanently damaged. Even if your partner does not cheat on you 100 times after that. There is permanent damage. Restoration of the relationship is only possible when there is repentance and forgiveness.
I give you this example to make our relationship with God clear. Any form of rebellion against the great and holy Creator damages His honor and the relationship between Him and us. We can no longer come near Him. There is only a way back if we sincerely repent and God wants to forgive us.
But being righteous, God cannot simply forgive without doing something with our sins. If He would forgive people just like that, other people would have a claim on Him as well. He would no longer be trustworthy.
Chapter 7 ~ There is Hope
God created us because He loves us. He did not create us because He needed helpers who would serve Him as slaves. He is love and loves His creatures. Love is only expressed when you share the love with others. He wants to share His love with us and He has given us the opportunity to love Him too.
But we have a big problem. God cannot love us because we are tending to sin and ignore Him. His honor is shamed every single time and our deeds demand justice. Because of this, the distance between us and God becomes greater and greater. We live, as it were, in darkness and we are heading for death.
Despite our shameful behavior, God wants to restore our relationship. We cannot do this ourselves. We make mistakes over and over again. Yet, if we sincerely seek Him and repent of our behavior and misdeeds, He wants to offer forgiveness for all our faults. He has conceived a great plan to be loving but also just. He Himself took the punishment for our mistakes. You can learn more about this in Chapter 8.
When people sin, they earn what sin pays—death. But God gives his people a free gift—eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
Chapter 8 ~ The good news!
The law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin. God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin. Romans 8:3
You may wonder how God can have a Son? In the article “Does God have a Son?” you can learn more about this question. The most important thing I want to share with you now is that by dying, God’s Son has paid for our dishonor and our sins. He made it possible for God to forgive us, without us having to bear the penalty ourselves. Thanks to that forgiveness, the relationship between God and us can be restored!
The great Creator who becomes a human being. That is already a great humiliation, isn’t it? Yet that is His loving and brilliant solution to restore our relationship.
He came to earth and was born of a mother just like every other human being. There was one difference from all the other humans. His mother Mary was not conceived by a man. God’s Holy Spirit conceived the child within her. A unique combination of the divine and the human. He was given the name Jesus (meaning Saviour) and was called the Son of God.
Jesus was about 30 years old when He began to share the good news with the people. During His life He teaches people that God loves them. He points out to the people that they should live as God wants them to live. He also healed many sick people and performed many miracles.
But He was not only a teacher and an example to the people. There was a much greater plan. A plan that had been predicted centuries earlier…
From that time Jesus began telling his followers that he must go to Jerusalem. He explained that the older Jewish leaders, the leading priests, and the teachers of the law would make him suffer many things. And he told his followers that he must be killed. Then, on the third day, he would be raised from death. Matthew 16:21
The religious leaders considered Him a threat to their power and authority. They wanted to have Him condemned to death, but the only thing they could accuse Him of was that He said He was the Son of God. With the pressure of a large crowd, they succeeded in condemning Jesus to death on a cross.
Jesus, the Son of God, was shamefully nailed to a cross. He could easily have avoided this if He had wanted to. But He willingly underwent that punishment. He thus carried the punishment that you should have earned for your sins.
By dying voluntarily, He washed away our sins and our shame with His blood and purified our conscience. He has given His life for you and me!
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life. John 3:16
To show that He is mightier than death, He rose from the grave again after three days. He paid our penalty and thus offers us the opportunity to leave all our sins behind and receive forgiveness.
Who can say that God’s people are guilty? No one! Christ Jesus died for us, but that is not all. He was also raised from death. And now he is at God’s right side, speaking to him for us. Romans 8:34
Do you regret that you have dishonored your Creator so many times? And do you want to accept His offer to restore your relationship? Then accept His salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God will forgive your sins and not condemn you anymore. If you accept this offer, you will be born again (spiritually). You will even be “adopted” as His child!
But some people did accept him. They believed in him, and he gave them the right to become children of God. They became God’s children, but not in the way babies are usually born. It was not because of any human desire or plan. They were born from God himself. John 1:12-13
Chapter 9 ~ What will be your choice?
Now it is your turn. Do you want to answer to God’s love? Are you aware that you cannot ignore your Creator? And do you understand that your behavior dishonors Him over and over again?
It is certainly not an easy choice to accept His loving offer. It means that you have to stop living the way you used to live. You will have to put God in the first place in your life. You can start living the way He intended out of gratitude for His loving forgiveness.
People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. But people who do not believe are already judged, because they have not believed in God’s only Son. They are judged by this fact: The light has come into the world. But they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. John 3:18-19
What will be your choice?
Do you want to continue to live your life as you were used to? Do you want to continue to ignore your Creator? That is a choice too. But in doing so you also determine your own future. It will be a future far away from God. The Bible is clear about this: You will have to face the consequences for your attitude towards God and for all the wrong things you have done.
I hope you will take up God’s offer to start a new life! A life that will be far more rewarding and valuable than you could ever imagine. A life in which you may become part of the ‘family’ of God. After your life on earth, you may live forever in Heaven, close to God.
If you choose to give God the most important position in your life, He will also take care of you. This does not mean that you will not make any mistakes from now on. Nor is it a guarantee for a life in luxury and without worries. Temptations, sickness and pain remain and one day your body will die. But you can be sure that your destination is with God in Heaven. For your soul there is an eternal future with God.
I hope you have been touched by what God has done for you. The choice you are facing is not an easy one. Particularly if you live in a country where most people have a different view of the creator.
You can also just go on with your life. That is also a choice. If you still have doubts, do your own research and do not stop until you are sure that you have found the Truth. You can also ask God for that.
If you want to talk to someone about all of this, you can also use the CHAT. If it is available, you will see the CHAT button on the bottom right of your screen.
Are you ready to turn your life around and put God first in your life? Do you repent of your sins and rebellious and dishonorable behavior? Do you want to receive forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Do you want to start a new life? God is waiting for you with outstretched arms.
Make your choice today!