What is the Gospel?

Hello! – If you have stopped to read this, it is not by accident.  The God who created our universe and everything in it would like you to know what you are about to read.  The Gospel or “Good News” as it is translated from Greek into English in the Bible is a message to us from Him which has power far beyond what you can imagine.

What is the “Good News?”  Let’s say for starters that it is a message for people who have come to realize that no matter what they have done to satisfy the longings of their heart, they have fallen short.  It is for those people who are desperately searching for something to fill the hole they feel deep inside.
The Bible tells us that God was the creator of everything.  It tells us who we are and how we were designed to be as humans, both male and female.  It tells us that our earliest ancestors had a relationship with God where they were able to regularly walk and talk with Him.  It also tells us that we have inherited two different dispositions.  A ”good” one because we were created in the image of God, and a “bad” one because those same ancestors chose to go against God’s command and were separated from Him.  The hole we feel deep inside is because we have lost our relationship with our Creator by turning our backs on Him.  In order to fill this hole, we must re-establish that relationship.
The entire Bible points to the “good news” about the plans God made to bring us back into relationship with Him through His son Jesus.  Hundreds of years before Jesus’s birth, the Bible tells us about the One that would be sent to save His people.  Jesus who was called Savior, Redeemer, Advocate, Lamb of God, and Deliverer among other names was God’s plan to bring us back into relationship with Him.
Why do we need… to be saved? redeemed? an advocate? a sacrifice? a deliverer? Because we are lost and separated from a Holy God with whom we were designed to be in union.  The dilemma we are all faced with is how to re-establish our relationship with a Holy God.  God is so good, just and separate from us and we have all turned our backs on Him in one way or another.  How could He accept us back?  Many people think that if you just have more good deeds on one side of God’s justice scale than bad deeds on the other, that He would surely allow us into heaven.  This is not what the Bible says.  It says that there is nothing we can do on our own to re-establish this connection and without it we will be judged and eternally separated from God.  This is why God sent Jesus, the lamb, to be sacrificed in our place to provide us with a way back to Him.
Why does God require a sacrifice?  Because ultimately we live in a universe designed by a moral God with a purpose and a plan.  He gave each of us a conscience to remind us how we should live and He gave us moral laws to live by.  If you acknowledge that there is evil in this world and a need to bring “evil” people to justice, deep inside you will know that we need much more than what we have on our own to restore our relationship with God.
The Bible says that the way back into a relationship with God goes through Jesus.  He is God the son who became man.  He was born supernaturally to a virgin mother, Mary, and grew up living a life never doing anything wrong and in complete connection to God His father.  Though He had not done anything to deserve it, He willingly allowed himself to be horrifically whipped, mocked, beaten, and ultimately nailed to a wooden cross on which He died.  If that was the end of the story, there would be no “good news.”  The wonderful and priceless “good news” is that after Jesus died and was buried, He was raised from the dead, was seen by hundreds of people, and now is alive and sits at the right hand of His Father.
The Bible says that If you believe this in your heart, just like followers of His have done for thousands of years, you too can have new life and be restored into a relationship with your good and loving Creator.  By believing, God the Holy Spirit will come into you and that hole in your soul will be forever filled.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14
“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Mark 10:45
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Romans 8:1
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  Romans 8:32
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  Corinthians 5:21
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You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. Psalm 145:16
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul  Psalm 23:1-3
You satisfy me more than the richest of foods. I will praise you with songs of joy.  Psalm 63:5
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  Psalm 42:1
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“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:18

Jesus Good News