“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”¹

As noted yesterday, Godspell or God’s good news is that the gospel is first of all a message about God and his infinite love for all mankind. Second, it is a message about sin and sin’s tragic consequences. Fortunately, the gospel is also about the following:

3. A Message about Jesus Christ. God is not only a God of absolute holiness, but also a God of perfect justice. Because of this, all sin has to be judged, the just sentence of which is spiritual and eternal death. However, the gospel is also about how God is not only a God of absolute holiness and perfect justice but also a God of infinite love. Because of God’s infinite love for us, he gave his own Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth in the form of a man and willingly died in our place on the cross of Calvary to pay the penalty for all our sins. Because Jesus was without sin, he was the only one qualified to die to pay the penalty for our sins. Had there been any other way to save mankind, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die for us.

4. A Summons to Faith and Repentance. The really good news is that God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life is available to all who will accept it.

First, we need to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died in our place to pay the penalty for all our sins. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved”² states the Word of God.

Second, we need to confess our sins to God and ask for his forgiveness. God’s Word also says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”³

Next, we need to repent. That is, we need to turn from sinful and selfish ways to follow God and his ways. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”⁴ That is, we need to turn from sinful and selfish ways and make a commitment of the will, with God’s help, to follow God and his ways.

Fourth, we need to receive Jesus as our Savior. God’s Word says, “To all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”⁵

Admitting and confessing our sins, believing that Jesus died for our sins, inviting him into our lives as Lord and Savior, accepting God’s forgiveness and turning from our sinful ways to live God’s way is what makes us a real Christian. This is what Godspell—God’s good news is all about!

If you have never received Jesus as your savior, for help be sure to read “God’s Invitation” at: http://tinyurl.com/6k49w

To be concluded ….

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your wonderful gospel—for giving your Son, Jesus Christ, to die in my place to pay the penalty for all my sins, and to grant me your forgiveness and the gift of eternal life. Please help me to be sure that I have truly accepted Jesus as my Savior and have your forgiveness and gift of eternal life to be with you forever in heaven. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John 3:16 (NIV). 2. Acts 16:31 (NIV). 3. 1 John 1:9 (NIV). 4. Mark 1:15 (NIV). 5. John 1:12 (NIV).

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“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”¹ Or to put it another way the gospel “is God’s powerful method of bringing all who believe it to heaven.”²

This Scripture text was written by the Apostle Paul in the first century AD. But what is the gospel that Paul was not ashamed of?

As Webster’s Dictionary explains, the meaning of “gospel” is “Godspell or good news.” It is the good news about God’s salvation plan for mankind. Specifically, as another has said: “The gospel is a message about God, a message about sin, a message about Jesus Christ, and a summons to faith and repentance.”

1. A Message about God. The gospel is not a message about religion. It’s about having a right relationship with God. Religion tends to want to fix us from the outside in. God wants to fix us from the inside out. The first can become an impossible burden. The latter is what brings freedom. Neither is the gospel a set of rules and regulations. It is experiencing God’s divine love, divine acceptance and divine forgiveness—and learning to communicate this to every life we touch.

It helps to realize that God isn’t out to zap us for the wrongs we’ve done. In fact, no matter what we have ever done or have failed to do, God loves us with an everlasting love and has a wonderful purpose for our lives—for this life as well as the next! As Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”³ And again, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.”⁴

2. A Message about Sin. Many people understandably ask, “If there is a God and if he is a God of love, why does he allow so much suffering, sickness and sadness in today’s world? Without sounding too simplistic this is because we have all sinned and separated ourselves from an infinitely holy God.⁵ It’s not that God left us, but rather, we left God and separated ourselves from him—and from his protection.

Another misconception about God is that he is out to punish us for our sins when, in fact, we bring sin’s punishment on ourselves because sin has its own natural consequences. If we try to break the universal law of gravity, for instance, we can’t. It will break us. Neither can we break God’s universal moral law. When we do, it breaks us, and besides its painful effects in this life—suffering, sorrow, sickness and spiritual death—its ultimate and tragic consequence is eternal death which is separation from a holy God⁶ in the place the Bible calls hell.

To be continued ….

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your wonderful good news that provides hope for all mankind. Please help me to experience your divine love, divine acceptance and divine forgiveness, and in some way communicate this to every life I touch. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’name, amen.”

1. Romans 1:16 (NIV). 2. Romans 1:16 (TLB). 3. John 3:16 (NIV). 4. John 10:10 (TLB). 5. Romans 3:24. 6. Romans 6:23.

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“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”¹

According to Doug Batchelor in his book, Broken Chains, “There’s a story about two Filipino brothers, identical twins, who lived in Manila and made their living by driving jeepneys, Filipino taxis.* Though they were twins and had similar jobs, they lived very different lives. One was married and had children; the other was single. Then one day, the married brother accidentally struck and killed a tourist with his taxi. Accused of reckless driving, the twin was sentenced to twenty years in the notorious Manila prison—a devastating fate that would leave his wife and children without an income.

“One day, his twin came to visit him in prison. He said, ‘Brother, your family desperately needs you. Put on my clothes and take my visitor’s pass and I will put on your prison uniform and serve the rest of your sentence. Go to your family.’ So, while the guards were not looking, the twins exchanged clothes, and the married brother walked out of the prison unchallenged. Do you think the twin who was freed could ever stop thinking about the sacrifice that his brother made in trading places with him?”²

Though having limitations it is still a powerful illustration of what Jesus Christ did for you and me at Easter time 2,000 years ago when he exchanged places with you and me and died in our place on the cross of Calvary. He did this out of his great love for us to pay the penalty for all of our sins, so we could be freely forgiven by God and receive his gift of eternal life in Heaven to be with him forever.

If you have never thanked Jesus for dying in your place to pay the penalty for your sins and accepted God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life, I urge you to do this today. For help please go to http://tinyurl.com/8glq9 or click on the Know God button link below.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, how can I ever thank you enough for your great act of love in giving your Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross, and Jesus, for dying in my place to pay the penalty for all my sins? I believe and, Lord Jesus, I accept you as my Lord and Savior. And because you died for me please help me always to live for you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. John 15:13 (NIV).
2. Doug Batchelor, Broken Chains, Pacific Press 2004.
Cited on WITandWISDOM www.witandwisdom.org.
*Joy has ridden in jeepneys when on a mission trip in the Philippines. Some of these in some of the places are old converted military jeeps.

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“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”¹

An article supposedly reported in a national magazine, though not true, provides a penetrating parable picture of God’s wings. After a forest fire in a national park, so the story goes, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage.

One ranger found a dead bird in the ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick.

When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and gathered them under her wings. She could have flown to safety but refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze arrived and the heat singed her small body, the mother remained steadfast.

Even though this story isn’t true, one could imagine a mother hen seeking to protect her chicks by covering them with her wings. Because Jesus was willing to die for us—a true story—all who dwell “under the shadow of his [God/Jesus'] wings” will live—forever.

Suggested prayer: “Dear Jesus/God, thank you that you were willing to die for me so I could live. Help me to be willing to live for you so that I can be used of you to help win others to you so that they, too, will find refuge under the shadow of your wings and your gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 91:4.

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“But he [Jesus] was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement [punishment] for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”¹

G. Franklin Allee wrote how, “Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny babe in her arms when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination alive, and when the blizzard subsided her body was found beneath the snow. But the searchers discovered that before her death she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby. And when they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had given her life for her child, proving the depth of her mother love.

“Years later that child, David Lloyd George, when grown to manhood, became prime minister of the United Kingdom, and without doubt was one of Britain’s greatest statesmen. The UK was a better place for a time because a mother gave her life for her son.”

On a much greater scale the world today is a better place because on Good Friday 2,000 years God the Father gave his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cruel Roman cross to pay the penalty for the sins of all mankind. Thank God that includes you and me. And now, because of Jesus’ death, all who put their trust in him will live forever in Heaven with God where there will be no more sickness, sadness, sorrow or death.

Thus Good Friday and Easter Sunday—when Jesus rose from the dead—are two days that changed the world forever.

Note: If you have never accepted Jesus as your Savior, be sure to read the article in No. 2 below: “How to Know God and be sure you’re a real Christian.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, how can I ever thank you enough for giving your Son, Jesus, to die in my place on the cross. Because you died for me, Lord Jesus, I give my heart and life to live for you all the days of my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV).

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