The GOOD NEWS and the BAD NEWS
THE GOOD NEWS! The Saving Gospel is this:
1. Jesus Christ took your place in living righteously and in dying for your sin, both of which God requires of you. Romans 5:19, 5:8; Hebrews 9:28
2. God has accepted this Substitution, as though you had met the requirements, and is satisfied. Christ’s resurrection is evidence of this.
3. You are invited to rely on these two above facts alone in order to be saved. You are forbidden to rely on anything else or to attempt to offer anything else. The price has been completely met. You are not in debt. It is a gift.
4. The question is: WILL YOU SO RELY?
5. If so, God accepts you in Christ. You are securely saved on the simple basis of His work in your stead and nothing else.
THE BAD NEWS!
The Bad News is this: If you do not rely on Christ’s doing and dying in your stead, then you can only attempt to enter heaven by relying on your own record – very BAD NEWS indeed. Guaranteed and needless failure.
The GOOD NEWS has been provided by the love and grace of God. It is not dependent upon human mediators or messengers. 1 Timothy 2:5
Repentance, Christ in my life, being born again, etc., are all simply fruits of this salvation, but in no way do they bring it about. Furthermore, they are inevitable fruits – as automatic as the gratitude born in your heart when you see and trust the above GOOD NEWS. You need not concentrate on them in order to make them a reality. And you must not concentrate on them at the expense of the Gospel. Let them remain secondary.
FOCUS ON THE GOSPEL!
It is the GOOD NEWS!
It is the Grace of God
It is eternal salvation.
It opens heaven to us.
It sets us free.
Rest in it.
Rejoice in it.
Witness to it.
Contend for it.
It is the power of God…to all who rely on it.
Know also that this GOOD NEWS, the Saving Gospel, is the devil’s primary target, and has been from the day he first learned of it. Expect that it will be most cleverly and persistently denied, attacked, distorted, misstated, displaced, omitted, completed with, falsely supplemented, and most subtly altered and counterfeited.
By Ruth Miller
Washington USA