WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
The
gospel
PERHAPS YOU’VE HEARD THE WORD - GOSPEL
But what does it mean?
At its core the gospel is good news, that is literally what the word means - it is the good news that Jesus Christ came to this earth, died on the cross, and rose from the grave. But why is that good news…? Because we needed him to do that for us.
Let’s back up and start from the beginning.
There is a God that created you and loves you. He created you to live in a perfect relationship with Him, to enjoy Him and live and thrive under His good and kind rule. He provided for you all that you have, including the very air you breath, and made you to live a joy-filled life of worship to Him, for His glory and your good.
God
But somewhere along the way we weren’t so keen to live under God’s good and right rule. We decided we wanted to do things our own way. The Bible calls this attitude of the heart and action of the body sin. It means lawlessness. Instead of living life in a relationship with God, we decided to do our own thing. We decided to rebel. We decided to pursue the created things of this world rather than the Creator of this world, and the consequence of our actions is death. God must judge our sin because He is holy - He is set apart. He cannot let evil continue unchecked and justice be denied. And so, since we all have rebelled against God, He must judge our sin with the punishment of death. This is very, very bad news.
sin
But what about God’s love? Doesn’t He love us? This is the good news. God made a way for our sins to be forgiven without us paying the penalty for them. God made a way for His judgement to be satisfied without us actually being judged. What is this way? Jesus. You see, when Jesus died on the cross he took the punishment that we deserved onto himself. We deserved to die, yet he died in our place. By his perfect life, he deserved to live, and yet he gives his perfect life for us. This is called the Great Exchange. We deserved death, and yet he died. He deserved life, and yet we live. And finally, to remove all doubt, he rose from the grave, showing that he truly was the Son of God and only Savior of the world.
jesus
Jesus truly is the greatest gift the world was ever given, but a gift is of no use unless you open it. And so it is with Christ. The forgiveness from sin and new life that Jesus offers can only be received through faith and repentance. Turning to Christ in faith means believing that he is truly the Son of God who died on the cross and rose from the grave, satisfying God’s wrath against your sin and reconciling you with God. Turning away from sin in repentance means forsaking your old life of sin and separation with God. It means no longer enjoying and delighting in what God hates, but instead pursuing Jesus above all things. The Bible says that whenever you do this, whenever you repent and believe in Jesus, you are made into a new creation. God no longer sees you lost in your sin, instead He sees Jesus’s perfect life given on your behalf. Any attempt to be “good enough” to make it into heaven will utterly fail. We cannot be made right with God by our own good works. No, it is only by repentance and faith in Christ’s good work on the cross that we are saved. In a world that says Do, Do, Do, Jesus says DONE. My question for you is - Do you believe this Gospel?
response
next steps
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This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!...We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”
— 2 Corinthians 5:17, 20-21