The Beauty and Severity of the Gospel

A friend at work was feeling stressed over wanting to share Jesus with her mother—who may or may not be with us much longer. Her mother's quality of life is pretty low and that led me and my friend to a deep discussion of God and Jesus and a lot of stuff. 

After we talked, I was compelled to kind of bullet point out the Gospel as I understand it. I think it's the best I've ever been able to articulate the Gospel. So... here it is in hopes it blesses or prepares you for sharing the Gospel truth. I love you guys... thanks for reading.

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There is an ultimate authority

He is just and He is loving

He is supreme over all things, the maker and creator of all things, and as such He exerts appropriate authority over all things

He is God

Our sin keeps us from having right relationship with God

(Sin is anything that builds walls that separate relationship)

We can sin against a friend, a spouse, our parent or child

And, every sin against one of them is also a sin against God on top of the sins we sin against Him only.

Here’s the beauty... God made a way for us to have right relationship again, through Jesus.

Since punishments should always be equal to the crime, if I sin against my principle—say I offend him by spitting on him or mocking him—I’ll get a detention, or suspended, maybe even expelled. If I do the same to a policeman, I may wind up in cuffs or behind bars for a period of time. If I do the same to a king… I'm probably going to wind up dead.

The majesty of the offended party determines the severity of the penalty to pay.

A sin against God—the eternal, immortal, all-powerful king of the universe—could only be paid with an eternal punishment.

God created us for relationship. He desires that we have right relationship with Him. But, we've sinned against Him, and as such deserve punishment—because of the genuine majesty of the offended party, we deserve eternal punishment.

But, God is just AND loving. Because He is, He gave himself in human form to come and pay our debt of punishment—because He knew that an eternal punishment paid by a mere mortal would require all of eternity to pay, and then there wouldn't be any of the loving relationship He created us for.

Only Jesus—being the eternal God incarnate—could take an eternal punishment, swallow it up and come out the other side unscathed, and pave the way for our forgiveness and the restoration of the relationship that God created us for.

The justice of God was completed through the love of God by Jesus paying for our crime in our place.

Our job now is to choose to accept the gift of love that is salvation in Jesus—the love of Jesus that leads to eternity with God in loving relationship, growing and learning and experiencing Joy beyond imagining for all eternity… 

or 

choose to reject His gift and spend eternity suffering to pay a debt that's already been covered for us if we'll just accept His love and say yes to Him.

God commands that we accept His gift in order to receive that joy and freedom. It is an astounding offer, but it is not a request….

People choose hell—which is real—by not accepting the eternal freedom voucher presented to us in Jesus Christ, in Jesus the eternal King who loves us so much He suffered in our place (when we deserve to be the ones to suffer). And He chose to do that all so an eternity of Joy is laid out in front of us for experiencing in relationship with Him.

This life is somewhat like the menu for eternity… will you choose Suffering or Joy? Will you choose to go hungry forever, or...  will you let the One who loves you so much pay the tab?

To refuse is in itself an offense.

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That's the beauty and severity of the Gospel!