What is the Gospel (Part 3)

Before I begin. I owe all of you a major apology. I have held off on printing this blog for FAR too long and I've no doubt lost all of my loyal fanbase. For this I am sorry. Especially for anyone who really does need to know the good news of the Gospel. But first we continue with a slight recap Part 1 - The God who made us, loves us, also wants to reveal himself to us. Part 2 - We are not good and cant really have a relationship with God because we aren't perfect. Part 3 - (finally) The Good News, the Gospel, is that God still loves us. His love is ridiculous. His love is extravegent. His love goes way beyond what we think love is. His love is demonstrated to us in many ways. The first is called Immanuel. Immanuel means 'God with us'. The person of Jesus, is actually one part of God Himself, coming down to earth and taking up a life like anyone else. The sin thing that we humans have needs to be made up, cleared up by a human, because Humans are the one who have broken the relationship. So this guy Jesus, is not just any ordinary guy, but God come down to live among us. Thats the Good News part 3a = God with us. Part 3b is that this God-Man Jesus, went beyond just hanging out in a human body with super divine powers. Phillippians 2:7, in a poem about who this Jesus Christ is, tells us that he 'made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.' Hebrews 4:15 tells us that this God-Man was also tempted just like all of us other humans, except he never fell to temptation. Jesus came as a human, and lived a sinless life, as a model for what the rest of us humans should try to strive for. Part 3c is that Jesus came and died on a cross for our sins. He suffered the death that we all deserve. In the old testament people who sinned had to make a sacrifice for their sins. The punishment of sinning is that death must occur. In the olden times the death was all the perfect animals that were offered on our behalf. One of the most popular names for Jesus, The Lamb, or the Lamb that Was Slain, points us back to the picture of the old testament. Jesus was crucified to make atonement (to cover up) for our sins. Instead of killing a billion animals to make us sorta right with God, God himself choose to come and sacrifice himself on our behalf so that the problem of sin, the death, could be fixed. Part 3d is that Jesus didn’t stay dead. Death could not hold the Son of God in the grave. Rom 6:9-10 says that “since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” Jesus Christ was glorified and raised up from death as a testament to God’s power and the power of his love for us. Jesus now sits at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. The good news is that God wants a relationship with you. The Good News is that he makes it possible to have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ. That’s the best flipping news the universe has ever heard. Praise be to God. This fact that God wants a relationship with you is different than any other religion in the world. Allah did not be a human so that he could relate to us and we could relate to him. The difference between God and all other gods is that he knows firsthand how to relate to us, because he has been in our skin. That truly is good news that is hopefully worth the wait. Be blessed.