John 3:16-17 says:

"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. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

God is love. 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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

None of us is perfect. We all make wrong choices. We all do wrong things. The Bible calls these wrong choices and wrong things sin.

And the penalty for sin is death--dying and spending eternity separated form the God who loves us. But we do not have to pay that penalty ourselves. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid that penalty for us. He died so that we can live.

In Christ we can have eternal life. Without Christ we have no hope of life at all.