...and what is salvation?
Spiritual teachers and preachers have often referred to the gospel as "good news." A lot of news that you watch and read out there isn't very good at all. It can be untruthful, sometimes commercially driven, riddled with opinion, gossip, or overly sensationalized. Perhaps a better way to define Gospel these days is "shocking truth." The interesting thing about the truth is that it's truth, whether or not people talk about it or want to hear about it. At the end of the day you want to hear the truth, so that you can live your life based on truth rather than living your life based on something that's inaccurate or missing important parts.
Here's one of many ways to describe the same "shocking truth" about the reality about human beings and about Jesus-about life. Here's the Gospel.
Most of us in life have built up financial dept. Some have built up so much debt that they will spend most of their remaining lives trying to pay it off. Imagine someone with financial means coming along, and as a crazy act of kindness decides to pay off your debt that has become so sizable, you would never be able to pay it off. That's the Gospel. We have each accumulated spiritual debt that costs us our lives, which in spiritual language is called sin, and encompasses offenses against God, both large and small. The smallest deserving of a life of hell -- figuratively and literally. Out of an act of kindness, something in spiritual language often referred to as "grace," God the Father had His Son Jesus pay off that debt for us in full by giving His life. That's why you see him depicted in paintings as dead, nailed to a cross. That's the "shocking truth". So how do we receive that? Talk with God in prayer and let Jesus pay that price for you. Then, get baptized as an important symbol your new life. Next, reorient your life to the truth of God. This process is called salvation.
That reorientation is what the Bible calls "repenting." Align your spiritual compass so that north is pointing to God and live life to the fullest. Then, join a spiritual community of other people who have understood the same "shocking truth. Embraced the salvation that God, through His love for you and His grace, has made available to everyone. Lastly, tell others.
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