Amazing Grace ~ Part 3

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Today, it was raining. The girls couldn't go outside today.

"There is nothing to do." Lanie moaned.

"Well I'me sure there is something to do." Claire said, unusually optimistic.

"Like what?" Lanie asked.

Claire looked over at the bookshelf.

Ruthie would make fun of me.... but it's kinda my only option. Claire thought.

"Well, we could," She grit her teeth, "Read a book?"

"Oh, um I don't know. I don't really read that often." Lanie sounded really worried.

Claire grabbed a brown book, "Fine then, I'll read it to you."

"OK," Claire settled on the bed, "On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin." Claire read the title and frowned, "I think I've heard of this book.... I just can't remember what I heard."

They were quite a ways into the book when Claire stopped reading, "This is trash!" She cried.

"What?" Lanie asked, startled.

"This, all of this stuff is a lie!" Claire answered.

"How do you know?" Lanie countered, "This is what I've been taught all my life."

"Well, this book, the Bible, says that God created us in his image." Claire replied.

"God?" Lanie asked, "I think you had better tell me about this book."

"Well," Claire began, "We all do bad things, and God calls these things sin. God is perfect, he has no sin, and because he is perfect he can't be in the presence of sin. And we are sinful, therefore we can't be in God's presence. The problem is that when we die here on earth, we go to one of two places."

"The first place is heaven. In heaven we are in God's presence continually and we can worship him! But the second place we can go is called hell. Hell, is also called the lake of fire, it's where we are punished for our sins."

"So, we have sin, and because of that, we can't be in God's presence so we are going to go to hell? If that's true, then why don't we stop sinning?" Lanie asked.

"Because we can't stop. We always sin. Even the good things we do, are sin because we don't do them to glorify God." Claire answered.

"So what you're saying is, there is no hope and we're all going to go to hell, and there's nothing we can do about it?" Lanie asked, and a sick look had come over her face.

"Exactly." Claire nodded, " But that's not the whole story. Even though we are all sinful God still loved us, not because of anything we did but because he chose to. And so he made a way for us to get rid of our sins. He sent his son, Jesus to die on a cross and bear our sins for us. So now we can be right with God. All we have to do

 is-"

"Oops," Lanie interrupted, "If I don't leave now, I'll be late for my once-a-month-meeting with my Aunt and Uncle."

"Oh, alright. Well, I'll come with you." Claire offered.

Lanie smiled, "Thanks."

The End of Part 3