What is the good news?

Have you heard Christians speaking about the Good News, or the Gospel before?

For us in Penuel, the good news of Jesus has changed our lives!

The Good News is absolutely essential to the Christian life - but what is it?

To understand the good news, we have to understand what the Bible says about God, and about us.

God created people to know him and to enjoy a relationship with him. But the Bible says that we've turned our backs on God, that we've fallen short of his perfect standard (sin) and because of that we've been separated from him. The Bible teaches that people are guilty before God, and are deserving of his just judgment.

But! God is a God of love. Before he even created us, God decided to come into our world in the person of Jesus to restore us to a relationship with him - so that we can know God as our Father.

To restore us to that relationship, our guilt, the judgment that we deserve and our separation from God needed to be dealt with. Jesus chose to deal with these things by going to the cross.

By dying on the cross in our place, we believe that Jesus made the way for us to be restored to our purpose - to know God! Though Jesus was without sin, he died taking our guilt and judgment upon himself, and because Jesus has risen from the dead, we can have new life in him, free from sin, guilt and shame.

How does that become true for someone? By turning to Jesus in faith - recognising that we need his forgiveness, and receiving it as his free gift to us. Through Jesus, the Bible says that we who were once strangers and enemies of God can become children of God - isn't that wonderful good news!

But there's more again to the good news! As we look at the broken world around us - hate, violence, evil - it's easy to be disheartened and lose hope for a better future.

The Bible points us not only to what God has done, but also to what God will do - he will redeem the world in a new creation, without evil, without pain - even without tears.

There is good news both for you and for the whole of creation in Jesus.

If this Good News that offers freedom, forgiveness, righteousness and a new life with God is something that you want to explore further, please get in touch with us! There's nothing we'd rather talk about!