You may often hear Christians proclaiming the ‘good news’ that Jesus died so you could spend eternity with Him in Heaven.   I know that looking back on my own life growing up as someone who didn’t go to church; I didn’t understand why Jesus dying was actually good news until I realized the bad news.  It may seem strange, but the bad news is what makes the good news make sense.

The bad news is that the rebellion of the first man, Adam, against God’s command brought death and suffering into this world – kind of like how a runaway teen also runs away from a warm bed and hot meals.  Here is why this separation from God is such a problem.  God is perfectly holy and we all have a sin nature.  Sin and Holiness don’t go together and because of this, we as a human race are separated from our Holy God now and if left uncorrected, for eternity too.   You see, what I had to understand is that Jesus didn’t come to prove God’s existence – that was already firmly established; He came to deal with our eternal separation form God… and this is where the good news comes in; God has done something about our sins.  ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John 3:16).

So why did Jesus have to die?  Because God is a God of justice, He must punish every act of disobedience.  But because He is also a loving God, he offers to take the punishment in our place.  It can only be Jesus because he is the only one without sin.  This is why Jesus had to die; no one on death row can take the punishment for another because they are under the same sentence.  Jesus is literally God coming into this broken world in human form to live a sinless life so that his sacrifice for us would be a worthy one.  The innocent paid for the guilty.  So innocent in fact that his one sacrifice could pay for all of mankind’s sins.  Our sins have to be paid for; either we can pay for it by dying and spending eternity separated from God; or Jesus can pay for it, leaving us free from punishment where we can live forever with Him in Heaven.  All we have to do is humbly apologize to God for the things we have done wrong, accept His sacrifice and forgiveness (forgiving yourself too!), and then trusting God by letting Him give leadership to our lives.  Don’t be put off by the ‘rules’ in the bible.  They don’t exist to spoil someone’s life, they are holy commands that are a reflection of God’s holy heart and they are commands that bring life and peace!

Therefore: “He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).  The Bible also says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  It’s amazing that God loves us so much that he took our punishment for us and all we have to do is follow him.  Now that is a God worth trusting!

If you want to know more about the reality of eternal life, please write or call one of our pastors and we’d be honored to talk with you.  Also feel free to join us for our Sunday morning service at 10:30 am.