1.1 Our Need to be Restored

Having faith in Jesus makes sense once we understand what He said about us and about Himself.

Jesus taught that everybody has a heart problem. 

He said that “from within” us comes sin (Mark 7:20-22). What is sin? At the root of it, sin is rebelling against our loving Creator and failing to love Him as we should. 

Jesus taught that we should love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and that we should love other people as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Yet, if we take an honest look at our lives, we’ll see that we often prefer ourselves instead of God; that we often treat Him and others in shameful ways; that we haven’t always acted as we know we should. 

Sin may play out differently in each one of us—perhaps through selfishness, pride, envy, deceit, lust or lack of self-control—but we’ve all at times deviated from what is right, over-stepping into what is wrong. The consequences of our sin are evident in our own lives and in the lives of those we wrong. 

The Bible teaches that breaking the moral law is the cause for humanity’s physical death and suffering. It also teaches that sin has devastating consequences for our souls—it breaks our communion with God during this life and, potentially, after it too. This is called “spiritual death” because, unless we are restored, sin will separate us from The Giver of Life and all that is good forever. 

Is there hope for us? How can we be restored?