How do I get Him to forgive me?

Good news--it's actually amazingly simple to get on right terms with God.

That's because of what we call the "gospel" ("gospel" means "good news"). John 3:16 says "God so loved the world that He gave His only son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

Here's the "good news":

1. God established a set of laws for man.
2. Men have never obeyed all of God's laws. We are rebellious against God's authority.
3. God provided a way to be reconciled to Him. In the "Old Testament" (the first part of the Bible) God told the Jews that they could sacrifice certain animals in certain ways, and He would forgive their sins. In a sense, the animal took the punishment the sacrificer deserved for his rebellion.
4. God knew that this animal sacrifice system had its weaknesses, though. (For one thing, you had to sacrifice an animal every time you sinned!) He intended the system to be mainly an illustration of the perfect sacrifice which He would send later. "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats . . . makes holy . . . How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:12-14)
5. About 2000 years ago, God did send the perfect sacrifice. His son Jesus was born on earth, lived about 33 years, and was executed by cooperating Jewish and Roman authorities. He never disobeyed God's law once.
   "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (Galatians 4:4)
6. God accepted Jesus' death as the final sacrifice. Any person who asks God to accept Jesus' death as the sacrifice for his rebellion will be forgiven.

Therefore by the keeping of the law no man will be declared righteous in [God's] sight: for the law shows us what constitutes sin. But now a way to the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe (for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God), being declared righteous freely by His grace through the freedom from judgment that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a substitute sacrifice through faith in His blood . . . to show . . . His justice: that He might be just, and at the same time declare righteous the one who believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what principle? Of works? No: but by the principle of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is declared righteous by faith without the keeping of the law. (Romans 3:20-28, personal paraphrase)

First, you need to believe that you have offended God.

Second, that belief should create within you the desire to stop offending God. (Christians call this "repentance.")

Third, you must believe that you have not done anything to deserve God's forgiveness.

Fourth, you must ask Him to forgive you for Jesus' sake.

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Last updated August 25, 2005