The Gospel - The Good news

What is the Good News?

The Good News is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, the word “gospel” means “good news”.  However, in order to understand why the Good News is so good, we must first consider the bad news.

First, the Bad News…

  • The bad news is that everyone has rebelled against our Creator God. Our rebellion is called sin; and starting at the very beginning, people have chosen their own selfish desires over obedience to God.
  • The Bible says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) and all that He made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But it didn’t stay that way for very long. Shortly after he made them, the first people (Adam and Eve) chose to disobey one simple command God had given them – not to eat fruit “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). Even though Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with their Creator and had the blessings of a life in paradise, they yielded to temptation and sinned against Holy God. Their sin brought death, disease and corruption that affected all of creation, including them and their descendants (Romans 5:12). And so it has continued with every man and woman since then.
  • Sin starts in our hearts. Even if we don’t act out the sin, we are all guilty of violating God’s laws in our hearts (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28; Romans 3:12; Romans 3:23).
  • Because God is Holy (which means He is perfect in all of His ways and completely separate from sin and wickedness), He cannot tolerate sin. He alone has the right to set the standards, and He alone has the right to define the punishment for violating those standards. He will judge sin because He is perfectly just (Romans 6:23, Revelation 21:8 , Luke 12:5, Numbers 14:18).
  • The bad news: we all stand condemned before God and deserve to experience eternal punishment in a very real place called Hell. There is nothing we can do to pay for our own sins or earn God’s approval. Even our good works are worthless to save us.

the Good News.

  • If it ended there, we would have no hope. But thankfully, God Himself has made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and saved from Hell. What’s more, He offers a new opportunity to have a personal relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him in paradise (Heaven).

  • He has done this by coming to earth in the form of a man, Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully God; but He came to us–first as a helpless baby born of a virgin and then growing into manhood. Yet He lived a perfect and holy life, never sinning, and thus never accruing a sin-debt of His own. Instead, He taught people the truth about God and demonstrated His love for us. He then went to the Cross–dying the death of a criminal–to pay the penalty for our sins. He not only gave Himself up to experience an excruciating physical death, but He experienced the wrath of God and spiritual death–separation from God–on our behalf. Jesus also performed miracles which validated His message and confirmed that He was the Savior that was long-promised in the Scriptures, the most amazing of those being His own resurrection from the grave three days after He died. Jesus’s resurrection proved that God the Father accepted His Son’s sacrifice as the payment for the sin-debt of all of those who would trust in Him as their Savior.
  • God has done it for us. So how do we respond? Do you recognize your need? There is no magic prayer or ritual that you must do to be saved by God. You must simply believe the Truth that He has revealed about Himself in His word, the Bible. If you have come to understand your need to be saved from your sin and it’s eternal effects and have realized that you cannot save yourself,  then put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done for you.

If you have any questions about this Good News, or if you’d like to speak with someone about a decision you’ve made for Jesus Christ, please don’t hesitate to let us know! You can call us at (570) 371-4404 or contact us using the form below:

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