John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

First off, let me say that with the attitude of "I can use all of the spiritual help I can get", anyone is off to an excellent start with his/her spiritual journey. And I mean that very sincerely. Most everyone thinks "I got this, I can do this on my own", and their pride keeps them from realizing they can't. None of us can. I certainly can't save myself. Which brings us to what Barry, my good friend, pastor, and personal Bible scholar calls "The Baptist National Anthem", John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (Now you know what those signs at football games mean!) If we tease this apart a bit, we find a couple of really important truths. 1. God loves us. 2. He sent us His Son. 3. We didn't do anything to earn this. God loves us, that's all there is to it. 4. We don't have to perish, I.e. We don't have to go to hell. 5. God doesn't want us to perish, He wants us to have eternal life, I.e. He wants us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. 6. We need to believe in His Son in order to have eternal life. 7. Nothing else is mentioned that we need to do in order to have eternal life. Just believe in God's Son. Sounds easy enough. Certainly is simple. This gives us cause for hope. It's all going to work out in the end. God has taken care of everything. We're going to be fine, as long as we believe in God's Son. (I know that is Jesus, but I will keep this short and explain how I know that later.) Any questions so far?