Yes, we can! “God is just a prayer away”, it is said and indeed our silent or spoken prayers do reach this amazing Being instantly. Even if you are not a believer, God will listen to you. Even from inside a maximum-security prison, in the inner cellblock, as many of us have experienced. How is that possible? Well, as creator of the universe, God is not bound by space or time, He is beyond and yet in it. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient (all-powerful, all-present and all-knowing). “He’s got the whole world in His hands”, as in the title of an old Gospel song:

He also answers us, but as long as we are unbelievers, chances are, we won’t be able to hear Him, nor see what He is doing, even if He was right in front of us! Like a TV without an antenna, or a cellphone without an active SIM-card.

However, God speaks to us directly through a special book. Actually a series of 66 books, written down by 40 ‘inspired’ authors between 1400 BC to 90 AD. It has been translated into over 500 languages and it is estimated that 5 billion copies have been sold and probably as many more have been distributed free so far! It is called: THE BIBLE.

It’s absolutely amazing, if you know anything about publishing! Even the  “Guiness World Records” list it as the best-selling book of all times: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction

Interesting how far behind are the next runners-up, even though any author would be absolutely thrilled to reach such sales:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859), 200 million copies sold

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937), 140.6 million copies sold

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997), 120 million copies

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943), 100 million copies

It is more than the stories, poems, history and prophecy, God actually speaks to us when we read it. The ancient words suddenly appear to be written to us personally, even in a totally different context. It’s not a magic book with secret formulas à la “Abracadabra”, however, it is a spiritual book, that speaks directly to our spirit.

And finally, the main message of the Bible is that God has always taken the initiative to get in touch with us, rather than vice-versa. The ultimate manifestation is described in the book of John, in the New Testament this way:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-3, 14

How can the Word of God, which is written, become flesh? This is the message of the Gospel, that God sent His Son to come into this world. He came like any of us into the world: by birth as a little baby – the Christmas story. His name: Jesus (the) Christ (meaning “the anointed one”). The all-powerful God, the creator and Lord of the Universe, to come to our planet, to the small country of Israel as a baby, that’s hard to believe. Why would He do that? And if you read the Gospels to the end, you will learn that the religious authorities of the time also didn’t believe it and eventually had Jesus arrested, passed through a fake and illegal trial and then executed publicly as a common criminal. A brutal and agonizing death, nailed to a wooden cross. Why would He go through that and not kill all those wicked people at once with fire from heaven? How could He even die, when He was equal to God?

He did not stay dead, but came back to life 3 days later, proving thus that what he had said about Him was true. But the true motive for His coming was love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him… And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

1 John 4:9, 16

The Bible not only says that God loves each and every one of us, but it also even says that God is love.

This puts everything about Jesus Christ into focus. The only reason He came to this earth was because He loves us more than we could ever imagine. Think about anyone you have ever loved most, or whom you know that loved you most, and multiply that by infinitely more, if you can. Then you arrive at how much God loves you! He is crazy about you, as if you were His only child. But love only gets fulfilled if is responded to, as between a parent and a child, or between lovers, so unless you believe that God is your ultimate Father, it has no meaning! However, once you do believe this, you are “born again”, you become a child of God. The Bible guarantees this to you:

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

John 1:12

Sounds incredible? Yes, indeed, but that’s why the only requirement to get to know God and become His child is faith and not reasoning, or intellectual understanding. It is easier for a child to grasp this than for an adult. Their heads are not yet filled with all kinds of wrong concepts.

Of course He does, in fact, that is the very reason He came here! Jesus Himself said, when criticized about hanging out with ‘sinners’ all the time:

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 5:30-32

The Apostle Paul, who, in his former life was a Pharisee (a member of a very strict religious Jewish sect), him even persecuting Christians to their death, later says in his testimony:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Timothy 1:15-17

Anybody who has faith in Jesus as his/her Saviour can be saved, even the ‘worst of sinners’. That is also the purpose of this mission, to show that it is still the same nowadays, demonstrated by the testimonies of people in and out of prison, people who even committed serious crimes and were written off and hated by society for that. 

Simply by believing in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. You don’t have to do anything else, nor can you do anything at all. But it will cost you everything, you will lose your life; the way you lived it before! You must repent, i.e. turn around and go in the opposite direction. As if you were going south and realized you were getting nowhere; you turn around and go north instead. 

In his first public sermon, Jesus said (in Mark 1:15): “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

The first man who became a Christian in Europe was a prison warden, who after a dramatic experience with an earthquake, which opened all the doors of his prison, spoke to the jailed Apostles Paul and Silas (in Acts16:30-31):

“He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

This could be you, if you are not yet saved!

To summarize: what does “being saved” mean? It means you are not lost any more, i.e. going to hell with your lifestyle; you got to know God, by believing in Jesus, by finding/being found by Him. Your sins, all of them, are forgiven; you receive a new life, eternal life. You become a child of God. You can’t get this for no amount of money in the world! Fact is, money will even prevent you from getting this.