The Gospel message, in a nutshell is very simple.
We are all sinful. We are born sinful. No one had to teach us how to lie, or how to hurt others through our words and actions. That sinful nature is a part of us. But God didn’t want us to live this way. He created a beautiful place for His creation to reside with Him. But we, out of our greed for the things of this world, broke the perfection of His creation when Adam and Eve (the first two humans) sinned by eating fruit that was forbidden. It was that one seemingly small action that separated us from our perfect Creator, because how could something unclean reside with a perfect, Holy God?
But God did not give up on His creation. He wanted to redeem them so that they could once again reside with Him. But the penalty for our sinfulness was death. Death. “For the wages of sin is death…” But God loved us too much to let us perish for our sins. So He took the pain of the penalties on Himself. He, in the form of Jesus, took on flesh and died in our place so that we could bridge the gap between man and God and reclaim our residency with Him one day in Heaven.
He did all of that. So what do we have to do? We can try to be very good, or very talented but there is nothing that we can do to earn our way out of sin and back to God. But that’s ok, because Jesus did everything. All that we must do is accept it. We must accept his sacrifice on our behalf. Once we do that, we can be assured of our eternal resting place in Heaven. The simple, beautiful truth is it’s confess, believe and receive.
Emily Baer 