Jesus, the Christ (or Messiah), a carpenter from Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity. He was born of a virgin who conceived by the Spirit of God. He lived and breathed, ate and slept, just like a normal man. He also healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, walked on water, and turned water into wine. With all these miracles, one would think He was God.

Jesus had one purpose while on earth, and that was to restore mankind to a right relationship with His Heavenly Father. Our sense of purpose can be fulfilled only through this relationship. When we live in a relationship with God the future is still uncertain, but we can be secure in the knowledge that our true purpose is known to God, who leads us daily toward our destiny.

So how do we get into this right relationship?

The Free Gift

God is a loving Father, and as all loving parents, wants to see His children grow up to be the best they can be. Knowing that we naturally “sin,” or “miss the mark,” God provided a way for us to redirect our life back on His course. It's called “grace.”

The Father showed us His grace by sending a sacrifice to make up for the sin in our lives, and that sacrifice was Jesus Christ. Jesus was taken to court for speaking aloud that He was God, and the government beat Him until His lungs were exposed and nailed Him to a rugged wooden cross to die. In this manner, Jesus bore the weight of all sin, sickness and disease, poverty, affliction, addiction, and other unhealthy things, and took them to the grave when He died.