This Sunday (Oct 28, 2007) I am going to try and answer the question, “What Is The Gospel?”.
So what would you say in answer to this question? What is the message of “good news” that we as Christ-followers are committed to sharing…. Just that you know, I find the answer that Jesus died for our sins a simplistic cliche that doesn’t fully answer the question. Tell me more!
I recently examined the gospel as preached in evangelism by Peter and Paul in the New Testament, compared to the present day, and ended up by creating the website:
http://www.whatisthegospel.org.uk
You seem to have found it already, judging by the image above from my website!
The good news to me personally is that my Creator, God of the universe, is interested in having a personal relationship with me.
The problem with most of us in a statement like that is, “how did I qualify to be chosen?”
All the religions in the world seem to hinge on the acts of becoming worthy in the sight of God to be chosen and to be at peace with God.
But I have found that if you look really closely to the words and statements in the Bible, that you can see in every character, in every illustration, that God makes it perfectly clear that we are all not eligable to qualify to even stand in His presence.
So how does the Good news apply to us?
Well it doesn’t start with us, that’s for sure. It starts with God.
The good news is that God, our Creator loves His creation and has an incredible sense of perserverance to draw us back to right relationship to Him. He starts that “drawing” process from the opening chapters in Genesis and continues to the last verses in Revelation. His ultimate intervention to us was to become “flesh” himself and to take on the “guilty sentence” upon himself in order to clear our names.
But ultimately it comes down to our response to God.
Which do we want to serve? Are we willing to listen to God or to take things into our own hands and walk our own pathway?
My understanding of sin is this – to ignore God and to walk my own way.
To reject God’s “drawing” process of coming into restored relationship with Him is to sin. When we reject God, it leads to death. Not a death imposed by the judgement of God, but a death as a consequence of our decision of not being in His presence. When we are not walking in the presence of God then it leads to all kinds of “acts” of sin and ultimately death of our souls.
I am extremely thankful that God desires to have a relationship with me. As I relinquish control of my own agenda’s (it is a lifetime process!), it is incredible to see how rich it is to have this relationship with my Creator and God of the universe! This indeed is Good News!