If you follow any of my social media channels, you will see me talking about the Gospel frequently. I usually say it with crazy excitement or with tears in my eyes, but when I talk about the Gospel, I'm never lacking emotion. If you aren't a Christian, you may be wondering why...
The word gospel means “good news". It is the only true good news we will ever hear in this lifetime. This good news is the message of forgiveness for sin through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
In simple terminology: The Gospel is the story of Christ, who is God himself, leaving heaven to come to earth and die on the cross for our sins. Then on the third day, He rose again, proving that He indeed made a way for us to get into heaven with Him.
The essential content of this saving message is clearly laid out for all of us in the Gospels. I recommend reading the book of John first if you want to dive deeper into this and learn more!!
But basically, friend... If you're curious as to how to explain the Gospel simply to other people, or if you're looking to understand it more clearly yourself... Here it is in three simple steps!
1. God’s Perfect Design
God created the world in complete harmony and perfection. If you look around, the beauty that this earth possesses is quite impossible to ignore. The snowflakes, the music, the flowers... We can see the evidence of his creation all around us. The Bible tells us that God originally designed a world that worked perfectly, where everyone and everything were completely in sync. And this wasn't without purpose- He created us to know Him and to enjoy Him and to live for Him.
2. Our Brokenness (Sin)
Now- If we look around at this world we live in now, we can see that it simply doesn't reflect what God had intended it to in the beginning. Now, there is so much brokenness and sin in this world, and most people have no hope at all. We have all fallen short of what God had wanted for us. So many people, especially unbelievers, are in search of why there is such emptiness and evil in this world- and it all comes down to a spiritual problem.
We chose to break God's rules, live for ourselves and our own desires, and to leave Him behind. We took for granted the unity we had with Him. This is what the Bible calls "sin". Sin is filled with idols and making "little gods" out of the things we can find in this world- although they never truly satisfy. Because of this sin, we have become distant from God and others as well. The Bible says the consequence of sin is death.
3. The Solution
We kept trying to figure out a solution on our own, but our own sinfulness kept leading us astray. We could never restore our relationship with God back to what it once was, and we were truly running out of options. We felt our brokenness, and we begged God for a remedy.
God, because of the love that He has for His children, did not leave us in our brokenness. He sent His Son, Jesus as a solution to our sin problem. Jesus came to us, lived a perfect sin-free life and willingly chose to die in our place to pay the penalty for our sin. He then defeated death and rose to life. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Hearing this good news is not enough, we must act on it and believe that He and admit our sinful brokenness, ask God for forgiveness and trust in Him fully!!!!