The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Good News. It is not bad news followed by good news, or even worse, bad news followed by the possibility of good news if only you can get your act together. It is Good News from start to finish. The Gospel does not begin with how bad we are, it begins with how good God is. It begins with the eternal purpose of the Gracious God as stated by Paul in Ephesians 1, and what He has made of you, me and the whole human race in Jesus Christ. The radical nature of the Gospel and what makes it such Good News, is not simply that our inclusion in the Divine life is God’s plan, as good as that is. But what makes it so Good is that not only is this God’s plan, but God’s plan has been passionately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It’s not up to us to make this happen. We are too valuable to God for Him to leave it up to us, He took it upon Himself and did it in us, with us and for us. God wanted it to happen and He made it happen!
How did God do this? He sent His Son. He sent the Son not just to die in our place, but to live in our place. In the incarnation, God became human, but He did not turn Himself into a man in such a way that He ceased to be God. Instead, He assumed humanity, in a way that means He incorporated humanity into His existing divine life. In Jesus Christ, God and man co-exist. God and man are united and reconciled. As Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human in one person, then what else can we encounter in Jesus Christ but the complete reconciliation of humanity with God?
The truth of your life is that you are not lost. The truth is that you were lost but you have been found by God the Father Almighty in His Son Jesus Christ. That is who you are. In Jesus Christ, your failures and wrongness, your guilt and shame, your alienation, have been destroyed on the cross. All the blackness has been forgiven, wiped out, put to death. It is done, finished, gone forever. He has put an end to everything that separates us from His Father and from sharing in His life.
Jesus Christ has achieved the eternal purpose of the Father of our adoption by coming to earth as one of us, and not only dying in our place (as crucial as that is), but also living in our place. Jesus Christ is both God come to us and us come to God. He is God relating to us and at the same time He is man responding to God, perfectly. He is the God who speaks and the man who listens. He is the God who commands and the man who obeys. He is the God worthy of worship and the man who worships. He is both the asking God and the answering man.
"But the Bible talks about us having faith", I hear you say! Yes, you are right. But the Bible asks us to put our faith in the commitment He has made to us. Our faith or hope must not be in our commitment to God, but in His to us. Jesus Christ has made the perfect response, the perfect act of obedience and the perfect act of faith, and He did this in our place and in our name, doing for us what we were not able to do for ourselves.
In short, the Gospel is the news that God loves you, has always loved you and will always love you. It is the hilariously Good News that God wants you to be in His family, a participant in the Divine life, yet not only this (but wait there’s more!); it is that God has made it happen. God wanted you and He came and got you. He searched you out, hoisted you up on His shoulders and carried you Home. You are a sharer in the very life of God whether you know it or not.
How did God do this? He sent His Son. He sent the Son not just to die in our place, but to live in our place. In the incarnation, God became human, but He did not turn Himself into a man in such a way that He ceased to be God. Instead, He assumed humanity, in a way that means He incorporated humanity into His existing divine life. In Jesus Christ, God and man co-exist. God and man are united and reconciled. As Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human in one person, then what else can we encounter in Jesus Christ but the complete reconciliation of humanity with God?
The truth of your life is that you are not lost. The truth is that you were lost but you have been found by God the Father Almighty in His Son Jesus Christ. That is who you are. In Jesus Christ, your failures and wrongness, your guilt and shame, your alienation, have been destroyed on the cross. All the blackness has been forgiven, wiped out, put to death. It is done, finished, gone forever. He has put an end to everything that separates us from His Father and from sharing in His life.
Jesus Christ has achieved the eternal purpose of the Father of our adoption by coming to earth as one of us, and not only dying in our place (as crucial as that is), but also living in our place. Jesus Christ is both God come to us and us come to God. He is God relating to us and at the same time He is man responding to God, perfectly. He is the God who speaks and the man who listens. He is the God who commands and the man who obeys. He is the God worthy of worship and the man who worships. He is both the asking God and the answering man.
"But the Bible talks about us having faith", I hear you say! Yes, you are right. But the Bible asks us to put our faith in the commitment He has made to us. Our faith or hope must not be in our commitment to God, but in His to us. Jesus Christ has made the perfect response, the perfect act of obedience and the perfect act of faith, and He did this in our place and in our name, doing for us what we were not able to do for ourselves.
In short, the Gospel is the news that God loves you, has always loved you and will always love you. It is the hilariously Good News that God wants you to be in His family, a participant in the Divine life, yet not only this (but wait there’s more!); it is that God has made it happen. God wanted you and He came and got you. He searched you out, hoisted you up on His shoulders and carried you Home. You are a sharer in the very life of God whether you know it or not.
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