The Gospel

If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

A Fall from Grace

In the very beginning God walked with Adam and Eve “in the cool of the day” through the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8). This has been His desire and design ever since, because God desires to walk with us daily, and He designed us to walk with Him daily. When God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, everything was perfect. There was complete union and peace between God and humankind. Nothing was separating them from one another.

God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree in the Garden, except for one particular tree (Genesis 2:16-17). One day, the serpent came to Eve. The enemy deceived Eve, which led her to choose to disobey God and eat the fruit from the very tree that God told them not to eat from, and Adam also ate of the fruit. Adam and Eve sinned—they missed the mark. Because they disobeyed the Lord, they could no longer be with God and have a perfect relationship with Him because He is a holy and perfect God and their sin created a separation from Him (Genesis 3; Isaiah 59:2).

A New Creation

Sin separated us, but God had a plan to redeem all of us back into a perfect relationship with Himself. The Bible says it this way: for God so loved you and me “that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God demonstrated His perfect love for us “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, ESV). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Jesus came and lived the perfect life that none of us could or can live, and He died the death that we all deserve by taking on all of the sins of the world. Three days after He died, He rose from the grave, defeating death and the power of sin.

Because of the Cross, we are one in Christ just as Christ is one in the Father. This is why anyone who is in Christ is a new creation—“the old has passed away and behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV). God has not given us this gift of life and reunion through Jesus because of anything that we have done or by anything that we have not done but because of what Jesus already did. He is coming back one day to be enthroned as King forever, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and this is what we eagerly wait for. All who know Him will spend forever with Him and there will be no more sorrow and no more pain (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-5).

How beautiful!

Restored Relationship

Even in the midst of your sin, God still called you by name (Isaiah 43:1). Before time ever began, He saw you and loved you and chose you. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us because He desires to be in relationship with us and designed us to be in a relationship with Him.

Jesus loves you! He loves you so much that He meets you right now where you are, but He loves you way too much to leave you there. By confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Oh my goodness, tears come to my eyes as I dwell on the undeserved love of God. Because of Jesus, you do not have to live the same way you have been. You do not have to keep running in the same circles and falling into sin, but in Him you can have abundant life!

The only response I can find to such news is to praise and worship Jesus all the days of my life! By giving my life to Jesus, I do not become perfect, and all of my problems don’t disappear, but they are placed in the hands of the One who is perfect and who turns my problems into a testimony of His promises. Such a love makes me want to love. Such freedom makes me want to tell everyone I meet about Jesus who is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life.

Jesus died and rose again in triumph so that together we could forever be His. Behold, the old is gone and the new has come!