The Good News to mankind starts out with bad news for mankind: In God's eyes, you're not good, no matter how much better you think you are than others. You're not good enough. You're dirty, and though you might be cleaner than many others, you're not clean enough...Not for God to give you an innocent label....one that is sufficient for you to earn your way into His Kingdom forever and ever. Well that doesn't make sense, why if there's a loving God would He create us with souls meant for eternity, only to send us to eternity in the doghouse known as Hell? I suppose that makes people feel it's foolishness. God even says in the bible that the Gospel is foolishness...to those who are perishing....whom God is storing up His Wrath for. The place of torment is really designed for the 1/3 of the angels who left their place to follow Satan.. God says it's not His desire that anyone should perish, but this is the consequence for the ones who refuse to acknowledge Him when given the evidence. When presented the opportunity to believe. The Word of God shows that God has a lot of mercy available; He has pity on those who just don't know. Nevertheless, the Scriptures say no one is without excuse when it comes to acknowledging His existence, because Creation demonstrates the simple fact that He is. The problem is that most people will die in their sin, with out knowledge of what God did for them. What happens then? How does God give them a chance to know? Well God is the judge, but Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.. no one comes to the Father (GOD) but through Him. But how will anyone know unless God sends out willing servants to tell them? 
The Good News is that Jesus the Son of God, whom He says Created all things with His Father, came down from Heaven and was born in a human sense as a baby. He did this to demonstrate His ability to live a perfect life, without sin...tempted in everyway we are, but without fault. He loved like no one else could love..sacrificially to the point of death. He forgave sins, and that really angered the experts in the law...from what they could see He was only a man. So just as was foretold by the prophets, and even Jesus Himself, they would capture Him, and He would willingly go and allow Himself to be brutally murdered, sacrifically, just as the lambs of the Old Testament were used to shed blood as a payment for one's sin, Jesus would put an end to the animal sacrifice required of the Jews, for those who would believe that He was the Lamb of God. Then Jesus rose again from the grave, showing everyone that He is what He said He is. The Son of God, and the Great I AM. Who can come back from the dead? We're not talking about fairy tale Frankenstein or zombies. We're talking about real life, to the point of more than 500 people witness Jesus after the grave, with the wounds to prove it, walking and talking with his followers. He showed Himself at least 3 times to the disciples + the time He ascended back to Heaven in front of everyone. The Good News is that if you come to realize that you're not good enough, and you would need God's mercy when you meet Him, and you are able to confess this with a heart of sorrow...like a kid who's been told they've done wrong and who needs to show remorse before they can receive forgiveness and a right standing.... then God guarantees you a chance of forgiveness..sin often comes with its own pricetag of consequences, but the Good News is God can completely forgive you because He chose to pour out his wrath on His Own Son Jesus. SO that you can be adopted into God's family by an act of FAITH, if you believe He loved you that much to send His own Son, and that Jesus would love you that much, and love His Father in Heaven that much to be obedient to such a terrifying experience...and a humiliating one at that, considering He is God the Son, All powerful, and really could have destroyed everyone on the planet with a word or a blink of an eye. 
Ephesians 2:8-10 puts your Faith, God's Undeserved Merit (GRACE), and God's personal SEEK and RESCUE Mission for your soul (Salvation) from Judgement and Wrath due to the unpaid accumulation of your sin. God's Integrity and His Word is His bond, and He says He paid for it on the Cross, but if you don't want to worship Him with confidence and if you don't want to spend time with Him for eternity and don't want to know Him, and if you trust in your own ability to be good enough to consider yourself righteous in His sight, then it will be evidenced by you not turning to Jesus and believing that He's the only way for you to know the Father in Heaven.
But if you do understand your debt to Him...the fact that you breathe His air. You enjoy your life, which He gave you. You realize you are more than skin and bones, but you have a soul that understands morality, and it has a yearning desire to know God....God urges you and everyone else, accept His solution...believe He did what He said He'd do, and that is send the Messiah (the Savior) to pay that debt and rise again the 3rd day..and make Him your personal savior by asking Him into your heart and thanking Him from the bottom of your heart, and choose to follow Him. That means choose to confess your sin and ask Him to clean you for that day, because He promises to forgive you, because the debt's paid in full for those who believe Him. CHoose to know His ways, and to obey them...that means bother to know what He said in the Bible. Don't lean too heavily on your cultural traditions that complicate matters that are absolutely contrary to what Jesus said! Don't lean too heavily on what you guessed is good enough. Check in with Him and see what He wants! That's reading the Bible and going to a good Bible teaching church. Jesus said to be careful, because there are a lot of wolves in sheep clothings that honor God with their mouth, but the fruit of their lives demonstrate who they really are. Often these people are back biters, abusive, fleshly, greedy, cheating, people out for the pleasures that the world can give them more than they are caring about what is important to God...What's important to God? People are. The integrity of His Word is important to Him. But the wolves will always minimalize what Jesus did for you, and they'll pervert His Word. Often they will make it as if you need secret knowledge to truly know God. Everything is a mystery and requires a system of works and deeds before you get to inherit God. Watch out. They will always try to steal glory away from Him, that He's 100% worthy of, by the way. They'll even tell you there's no such thing as a Hell, when God hath said many times there is. The wolves will not tell you God's promises, but they'll create their own system. They'll even do the very things God's Word says is not only sin, but is a terrible abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and worse, they will teach you to do them.
Yes, God considers His Word and people, (that's us) important. That's why Jesus came to show His forgiveness, His love, and offer sinners like us a chance to turn to Him and do our best to follow His ways knowing we all fall short, but to first and foremost believe in Him and receive His forgiveness through FAITH, through the FREE GIFT of Salvation for those who would just believe...
The good deeds come increasingly, but are just evidence of the inward change that comes from knowing Him....There's a whole lot of Freedom to that! That's God's Solution! If you don't feel a sense of belonging and closeness to God that is authentic, and you constantly feel remote, and insecure about your relationship with Him, and you feel constantly striving to earn his approval, and you feel like praying is a burden...it should be obvious to you that you don't have the truth about Jesus, you don't really know Him. The good news is you can know God Personally, and it starts the moment you open the door of your heart to Him and accept the invitation He has for you. Most people who are reading this blog are saved and belong to the Lord already, but I felt compelled to write this for some reason. I pray that it's a blessing, and there's someone who didn't know that yet, and this Christmas season is the one where you truly cash in on your right to become a child of God (John 1:12).
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