The Good News

God made everything.
God made the whole world and everything in it (Gen. 1; Psalm 24:1-2; Col. 1:16). Not only that, but everyday He uses His great power to keep everything working (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3; Rom. 11:36).

God made everyone.
Just as He created the heavens and earth, God has made people too (Gen. 1:27; Job 33:4). And just like the rest of creation, we too depend upon God for daily life. He gives us breath (Acts 17:25; Job 34:14-15), strength (Psalm 18:39; Isa. 40:29), wisdom (Prov. 2:6), protection (Psalm 23:4) and guidance (Prov. 16:9).

God owns all His creations.
Since He created everything and holds everything together, everything belongs to Him. He’s the king (Psalm 103:19; Rev. 4:2, 4-11). We’re used to rulers who can be mean and heavy-handed or selfish and uncaring, but God is nothing like them. He’s kind (Exo. 34:6), loving (Psalm 100:5; 1 John 4:8) and good (Psalm 104:10-14; Matt.6:25-33). He never does anything bad or wrong (Deut.32:4)

Furthermore, since we live in His world and He created us, He has the right to tell us how to live. He is our king (Psalm 95:3-6). In fact, He is the only true King (Psalm 96:4-6; Isa. 44:6-8; 46:9). Because He is a good King, the only right way to respond to Him is by loving and worshipping Him (Psalm 100:1-5; 103:1-5; 105:1-5; 95:2-7). In fact, this is why we were created (Mark 12:29-30).

The problem is, we don’t want His reign over us.

Instead of obeying God, we reject His rule and authority by doing whatever we want to do (Isa. 53:6; Rom. 1:19-23; Jer. 2:5,13). In doing so, we pretend that we are the king instead of God. This is the essence of what the Bible calls sin. We all sin (Rom. 3:11-12, 23) and our sin—rejecting God and trying to do things our own way—makes us rebels against the true King. Essentially, we have established ourselves as rulers of our own artificial kingdom.

There are real consequences to our rebellion.
We harm one another in many ways (Rom. 1:28-32; 3:13-18; e.g. Gen. 4:1-8; 26:19-21; 27:1-29; 37:13-28), abuse power and create injustice (Psalm 10:2-14). We damage God’s world (Gen. 2:15; 3:17-18; Rom. 8:22). The most serious consequence, however, is that we become God’s enemies (Rom. 5:10a).

Since God is just, He will punish all who rebel against His reign.
God won’t allow us to continue in our sin and pretend to be our own king. He has promised to judge every sinner and punish us for our sin (Psalm 96:13; Rev. 19:11). This judgment is called His wrath (Rom. 1:18). His judgment is that all who reject Him will be banished to a place called hell (Rev. 20:11-15; Luke 16:23-26). Hell is a real place of unending suffering (Matt. 3:12; 13:42; Luke 16:24-28).

But there’s good news…

Because God loves, He sent His Son, Jesus, to bear our punishment in our place.
Many years ago, God sent His own Son, Jesus, into the world (Luke 2:1-14). Jesus was perfectly obedient to His Father (John 15:10); 1 Peter 2:22; Heb. 4:15). He’s the only one who didn’t deserve to be punished. But He was punished. He was killed on a cross (Mark 14:43-50; 15:1-47). We have to ask, Why?

The Bible teaches us that even though He didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t deserve to be punished, He chose to die and take our punishment. In other words, He died in our place as a substitute (Isa. 53:4-6). Moreover, the Bible teaches that God sent Him from heaven specifically for this reason—to bear the judgment for our sin (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). In other words, God has paid our penalty Himself (2 Cor. 5:21). The good news, then, is that in Christ God offers pardon for rebels.

Then God resurrected Jesus from the dead.
Death was not His end. God brought Jesus back to life again (Matt. 28:1-10). After His resurrection, Jesus was seen by people (1 Cor. 15:3-8) who talked and ate with Him (Luke 24:30), and even touched Him (Matt. 28:9; Luke 24:39; John 20:27). Jesus then returned to heaven (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9) and God made Him king over everything (Phil. 2:8-11; 1 Cor. 15:25; Rev. 5:11-14).

One day, Jesus will return to earth.
His return will be dramatically different. When He comes back, He will punish all those who are still rejecting His reign in their lives (Rev. 19:11-16; 21:8). But He will welcome all the pardoned rebels into His good kingdom forever (Rev. 21:1-5). Because of what Christ has done, God is willing to forgive us for our sin and welcome us into His kingdom. To do that, we must admit that we are wrong and trust in Jesus as our king (John 1:12; 3:16; Rom. 10:9).

What does all this mean for me?
It means that either you submit to Christ the King or you live in rebellion against Him. You can reject Him by continuing to be a faux ruler. Or you can admit that you were wrong to try to be your own king, lay down your arms and surrender your life to Jesus. If you do this, God will forgive you because Jesus has already borne your punishment. Then, you’ll begin to enjoy the fellowship with Him that God created you to have. When Jesus returns, you’ll enter into God’s kingdom forever. So who will rule your life? If you are considering these claims of Christ, please contact us. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Finally, is it true?

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