It is fall where I live. Do you know what that means? Colorful leaves. Red, brownish colors, some may still have green, and there is orange, and yellow. Sometimes the trees just strike me as so beautiful. When that happens, I usually thank God for the opportunity to admire the beauty that He has created.

However, the falling of the leaves is a sign that winter is coming. It is getting colder, so the trees are shedding leaves. During winter, they won’t have any leaves at all. They will be barren, and they will seem dead. However, when spring comes, they grow new leaves, showing that they are alive.

It reminds me of Jesus of Nazareth. He died, but He came back to life, kind of like the trees.

How do I know that Jesus came back to life? Most significantly, because I know Him, and He has made me know that He came back to life.

If you don’t know that He came back to life, I guarantee you that there is proof in the Bible, and historical evidence outside of it.

But why does it matter for you whether He came back to life or not? Because you’re dying. Like the leaves, your body’s wasting away, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Also, you’ve failed to love your Creator in the way that He deserves. Do you know how serious that is? Failing to love the One who causes you to exist? Jesus taught that God is furious with those who fail to love Him. That’s why we’re dying – we fail to love God. And, since we will continue to fail to love God unless He does something, God will continue to be furious with us for eternity. That means we will die for eternity if we fail to love Him, and we can’t love Him perfectly. That means no life for eternity, no pleasure, no happiness, no comfort, nothing but torment, suffering, agony, pain. But there is hope in Jesus.

You see, Jesus is not just a man, He is God Himself. He is God the Son. God the Father sent Him to earth before He was a man to become a man, then made Him die for our failure to love Him. He punished Jesus for our sins. Then, He raised Him from the dead, so that we could have the opportunity to live new lives. He now commands all people everywhere to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus, His death for their sins, and His bodily resurrection from the dead.

You are not good, which is why you don’t love God perfectly, and is also why you deserve God’s hatred. It’s also why you cannot be good. The only thing you can do to be saved from God’s anger and eternal death is change your mind about your failure to love God, and to depend only upon Jesus, His death for your sins, and His resurrection as the basis for God’s forgiveness of your sins, and His giving you eternal life.