The Word of God goes on to tell us, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"(Rom.6:23). God loves you. Jesus loves you. He died on the cross in payment for your sins. He took your hell for you. He was raised victorious over death by the power of God to give you the gift of eternal life. He has done the work for you to secure your position with God for you to be His child for all eternity.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (Jn.3.16,17).
Your being right with God does not depend on how good or how bad you are. Your being right with God depends on what Jesus Christ did for you. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. God is not mad at you. God gave His Son to pay for your sins and to take your hell for you and make you a child of God. It's already done for you. He has given His only begotten Son as a sin sacrifice for you, so you can now fellowship with God as your heavenly Father and live in His presence for all eternity.
But this is of no benefit to you if you don't receive it as a gift. Just as you don't try to be better to receive a gift from a friend, neither do you have to try to be better to receive the gift of eternal life from God through Jesus Christ. You just realize you need it and you take it. There is something for you to do in order to receive a gift.
If someone holds their hand out with a hundred dollar bill in it and says, "Here, this is yours", and you never reach out and take it, then it is not really yours even though it was given to you. A gift is something that is presented to you, and you simply reach out and take it, or, you just receive what you see is given to you. When you hear the good news, and you want what is offered to you, and you say, "Yes, I want what Jesus did for me. I receive that now"--that is how simple it is to receive the gift of forgiveness and eternal life. It is as Jesus taught, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." (Lk:18:17).
Jesus preached, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt.3:2). Repent simply means "to turn". Jesus was simply telling those Jews to turn from their present views and their present life with God, and be changed to live in the greater life of God that was being unfolded before them and offered to them.
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, told those Jews who had killed Jesus, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off..." (Acts2:38). The promise of the Father is for us to experience the full life of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We "repent", or "turn from sin and our own way of viewing things and doing things", by accepting the message of God's forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit through His only begotten Son, Jesus. We make a definite commitment to God by confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior before men. That is why people who follow Jesus are baptized in water--to show the world that we are followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of man also will confess...but he who denies Me before men will be denied before...God." (Luke 12.8). Whether we are three or a hundred and three, if we hear and accept the message of Jesus and confess Him as our Lord with our mouth, the Bible declares that we are "saved."
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom.10: 9,10).
God has made it so simple a child can accept the message and be saved.
To truly believe on Jesus in this way, is to have everlasting life. This is the "new birth". Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God"(Jn.3.3-5). This is a spiritual kingdom that goes beyond mere natural, human understanding.
In this "new birth", we are spiritually made new "in Christ", our inner man has been made new--"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new"(2 Cor.5.17). God's Spirit comes into us bringing the life of God into us, baptizing, or immersing us into one Body of Christ. Also in this new life we can all "drink into one Spirit" being filled with the Holy Spirit and moving in the supernatural power of God as the people did on the day of Pentecost (1Cor.12:13; Acts 2). In this, our life takes on a new dimension so that God, His Word, His Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the people of God, the people in the world who don't truly know God, and all the things of God becomes our supreme interest.