When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Romans 5:6-11

Dear God, all of this is a wondrous mystery to me that simply requires my faith. I say that it requires my faith because there are any number of explanations for the existence of the universe, and whether people like it or not they all require some amount of faith. An atheist’s beliefs require as much faith as do mine. But there is too much evidence as I look at it to suggest that you don’t exist. Of course there is a being out there that is bigger than I can know, understand, or even comprehend. From there it becomes about relationship and interaction with that being. Jesus is my pathway to you for all of the reasons Paul mentioned above.

Am I wrong about some things in my theology? Sure. How could I not be? There is no way I can completely know you, your nature, etc. But I can use the basics of my faith to grow into. Being just a little more like Jesus, and hence a little more like you. And the closer I get to dying to myself completely the more I experience the fruits of the Spirit while I am alive. And after I die, worst-case scenario is that I’m simply gone. Best-case scenario is I’m in your eternal realm, worshipping you with the angels and the Saints.

Father, thank you for Jesus’s life, and for your revelations to the apostles and to Paul. Thank you for giving me a path to you. Thank you for taking me as I am and then transforming me into something that is more than the pile of flesh that was born into this world. Use me today. I offer my life to you as my offering of thanks, but also because I know that offering it to you will bring me to something even better both here on earth and beyond this life.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen