gospel

The gospel is a message of good news. But first, in order to understand the good news, you must know the bad. Each one of us has sinned and broken God’s commandments and that means that we are guilty before God. This means that we fairly deserve to be put in hell by God as a punishment for being guilty. The Bible describes hell as a lake of fire, and this is a place where people get no rest day or night, and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever (Revelation 14:10-11). The good news for you if you are reading this, is that you don’t have to go there. God has provided a way for you to join Him in heaven for eternity, where there is fullness of joy in the presence of God. A big misconception is that people will go to heaven because they have done good things or lived a good life. But this is not the case. Think about how that would work in a court of law before a judge. Imagine you committed a huge crime, such as murder, and you told the judge, “Hey judge, please don’t send me to jail because I have given to charity, obeyed the law most of the time, and am overall a good person.” What do you think the judge would say to you? If he is a good judge, he certainly wouldn’t let you go, and would fairly send you to jail. This gives us a good picture of what justice looks like, and God is perfectly just and fair. So, God knew that the only way any of us could join Him in heaven, would be if He came down Himself as a human, and paid the punishment that we deserve. And that is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus came down as a human, lived a perfect life not sinning even one time, and then He died on the cross taking the punishment that you deserve for your sins, if you will simply put your faith in Him (John 3:16). Jesus then rose from the dead on the third day, and there were over 500 eyewitnesses of this happening (1 Corinthians 15:6). So, the good news is that if you simply put your faith in Jesus Christ then you will be saved from your sins and hell, and you will get to join God in heaven for eternity (Ephesians 2:8-9). The reason anybody will be in heaven won’t be because of anything that they did, it will simply be because Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins. After someone is saved, they have been made a new creation and given new desires and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will help believers grow in holiness and become more Christlike over time. A true believer will be doing good works and keeping God’s commandments, but not perfectly. The good works and lifestyle a believer lives after being saved is simply a result of being saved, not something that plays a part in saving them. Remember, the only thing that saves anyone is Jesus Christ and what He has done, it’s not anything of yourself that saves you. Another thing with a true believer is that they can have assurance that they will go to heaven after they die because Jesus paid for all of their sins (1 John 5:13), and they can know that they will always be saved because God will keep them in His hand forever, and He will ensure that they never lose faith (John 10:27-29). The Bible also says believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and that He “is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Ephesians 1:13-14). So, you have a simple decision to make today if you are not a believer. Accept the free gift of eternal life that God offers you through faith in Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31). After you have been saved, great next steps to take would be to get baptized, read the Bible daily and obey it, and start going to a local church that teaches the correct gospel message like I have written here. God bless you!