I’m grateful for my parents’ example of faith in Christ, and for their commitment to take me to church and teach me about the Bible. No doubt God used these to prepare me to make my own commitment to Christ as a teenager.

But I became a Christian not because I grew up in a Christian family or went to church, but because I sensed a need in my heart to have my sins forgiven and to know God personally. I realized later that God had put that desire within me—and I believe He is doing the same in your life. Within every one of us is what has been called “a God-shaped vacuum”—a spiritual emptiness in our souls that only God can fill. My prayer is that you won’t try to fill it with anything less than the living God.

This is why I urge you to turn to Jesus Christ, for He was God in human flesh, sent from Heaven to open the way to God. Only one thing separates us from God, and that is our sin—and no matter how hard we try, we cannot erase our sins by our own efforts.

But by His death on the cross Christ became the final sacrifice for our sins. Ask God to help you discover from the Bible who Jesus is and what He has done for you—and then give your life to Him. The Bible says, “Christ also suffered once for sins … to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Find out how much God loves you.