Karin Goldman:  

Dear Friends and Fellow 1970 Graduates, Boy, that was a long time ago now!! As some of you might remember, I struggled a lot with depression in my high school years. That went on into my 20's. I wasn't able to go to college because of it and instead went to live on a sort of "psychiatric ranch" in Vermont for about a year. I used to think, "If only I could be given a new life and just start over!" Have you ever wished that? " I didn't know that would actually happen!! When I left Vermont, I moved to Boston, became a medical assistant and worked at a psychiatric hospital, interestingly enough! From there I went back to the ranch in Vermont, as a staff member this time. I was a houseparent to 8 troubled kids and it was a really difficult challange for me. I needed help! I had always believed there was a God, but I didn't know how to reach him or if he cared for me and I cried out to Him, "Show me if you're real!" Well it wasn't long before He did! There were 3 Christians on the staff who began to share the love of God with me from the Bible, which is actually all about Jesus Christ! They told me I was a sinner. I said, "No way! I'm a good person and I'm Jewish!! We don't believe in Jesus!!! They explained that God is perfectly Holy and just and we can't enter His presence unless the sin is removed from us. That is, if a person has even one unkind thought, he was guilty of ALL SIN! "There is none righteous, no not one. All our righteousness is as filthy rags" compared to the perfect righteousness of God." I didn't like the sound of that because I wanted to know God!! BUT God in His great Mercy, provided a remedy to this problem He sent His Son, God Incarnate or "God in man" Jesus Christ , to die on a cross in my place. In other words, GOD HIMSELF PAID THE PENALTY THAT I DESERVED AND IF I WOULD JUST RECEIVE THIS AWESOME ACT PERSONALLY - BELIEVE THAT HE WOULD HAVE DIED FOR ME IF I WAS THE ONLY PERSON ON THIS EARTH - I would be SAVED FROM MY SINS AND THE POWER THEY HAD OVER ME! You know how sometimes you want to do right but just don't have the power to do it? Because GOD HIMSELF WENT TO THE CROSS for me, sin was stripped of it's power to harm me and so did spiritual death! . I could be Justifed - "Just as if I'd never sinned!" Completely "accepted in the Beloved." Did you know that Jesus was Jewish? "He came unto his own and His own received Him not." But more and more Jewish people are coming to faith through Him and understanding more about what it means to be Jewish than ever before! You know the Story of the Passover Lamb? The blood on the doorposts made the angel of death have to pass over their homes and couldn't take their firstborn sons. You know the story of Yom Kippur? How the sins of the people were symbollicaly put on the head of a spotless (SINLESS) ram and the ram was sent away and the people's sins were then FORGIVEN. BUT IT HAD TO BE DONE EVERY SINGLE YEAR!! . But when God sent His own Son to die on the cross for our sins, he sent "The LAMB OF GOD WHO TOOK AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD!" ONCE FOR ALL TIME!! Then, the really amazing thing is that he rose from the grave, ALIVE after 3 days and showed Himself to many people before He went back to Heaven. Unlike any other religion, the God that we worship is ALIVE today! Still talking, moving, loving, empowering, strengthening, answering prayers and FORGIVING us today! All you have to do is call on Him, CONFESS THAT YOU ARE A SINNER and that you need Him and YOU WILL BE FORGIVEN OF EVERY SIN YOU EVER DID OR WILL COMMITT AND GIVEN A NEW LIFE - cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. the Bible says, "He Who knew no sin, BECAME SIN, that we might become the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD!" The Bible says, "BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND YOU WILL BE SAVED." Saved from what? From sin and death and an eternity apart from Him, apart from everything beautiful, good, loving, magnificent! If you want to know if all this is true, please ask the Lord, God Himself. I did....Expand for more