GOOD NEWS

The ‘Good News’ is another name for the ‘Gospel’ as the Bible puts it. We believe this good news is true - true in the same way that life and death are true - true for everyone. If this good news is true for everyone then you can understand why we want everyone to know it, and to accept it.

You don’t have to look very hard to see that the world isn’t always ‘peace, love and happiness’. You possibly don’t have to look further than your street in Blyth to see bad things happening. The problem is that people have a tendency to go wrong - to do, say and think wrong things. When we do, say and think things that are wrong in God’s eyes, it is called ‘sin’, and we have made ourselves unacceptable to God - that is the price attached to our ‘sins’.
The big problem is that we have all ‘sinned’:
“ Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal.” 1
Our ‘sins’ have cut us off from being God’s friend. We can’t get rid of the bad things we have done, not even by religion or doing lots of good things. This sounds terrible, but there is a solution - the ‘Good News’:
“ God has shown us how much he loves us - it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.” 2
We can’t put ourselves right with God, so Jesus pays the price of our sins instead of us:
“ Not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us.” 3
Jesus, God the Son, never did wrong by God’s standards, and so he didn’t need forgiveness, but he was willing to die so we could have forgiveness!
But how do we know that Jesus dying was good enough to save us from the price of our sins?
“ Because of our sins he was handed over to die, and he was raised to life in order to put us right with God.” 4
The proof that what Jesus did was enough is the fact that Jesus was raised back to life - to show that those who accept Jesus’ death are accepted by God.
The ‘Good News’ is that God loves us - He loves us so much that He did something to get rid of the sins that stop us from being His friends. People who accept this good news can truly say:
“We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son.” 5

1 Romans 3: 23, Living Bible Translation
2 Romans 5: 8, Good News Bible Translation
3 Titus 3: 5, Good News Bible Translation
4 Romans 4: 25, Good News Bible Translation
5 Romans 5: 10, Good News Bible Translation