Cassie Gordon

If you’ve read my book, you’ll see a large chunk of text at the end. You may have questions about it. You may be wondering what it’s all about. Who is Jesus? Why did He die to save me? I’m going to give you the Gospel message again. But this time, I’m going to explain a bit more.

Here’s the truth of the beginning of the world. Strap in because you might be amazed. This is what so many people are truly looking. Everyone feels unfulfilled, and they try to fill that hole in their hearts by using things of the world: sex, money, drugs, relationships, jobs, etc. But that longing is actually part of a grand narrative that is our past, present, and future. So here’s the story of the world, summed up in a blog post. This information is basically a summary of the world as described in the Bible.

God is love. God is an infinite God, the only God ever, and He existed before the world began. In fact, He always existed and always will. God then created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Why? Because God wanted His creation to speak of His glory. You might be wondering why He wants to do this, but we can’t understand everything God does. But we do know He always has good intentions and WILL do good. God might sound pompous because He created us, and everything He created, for His glory. But that’s not so. It would take a long time to explain here, so if you’re interested in that, check out these three articles: article 1, article 2, article 3. (Not a sponsor.) Actually, despite the world’s thinking, living for God and not yourself is the best way for us to live. It’s the happiest and most peaceful, most fulfilling and most awesome way to live. So God is not selfish. Even if He were, He’d have a good reason so that it would not be a sin.

Okay, so God created the world. And it was GOOD! God created a perfect world with perfect people. Everything was good. There was no evil. No death. No sadness. God would walk with Adam in the Garden. Perfect. This is what God originally created.

What went wrong?

Well, with disobedience against God (this is what sin is), that first sin opened up a chasm between God and humans. Perfection ended on earth. The original disobedient act was that Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit. Satan had deceived them into eating the fruit, but the humans still ate it by their own will, thus making it a sin. God had told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. Since they did, now they knew good from bad. But God didn’t want them to eat the fruit because He knew what would happen. He didn’t want them to get hurt. He gave them freewill, and they chose wrong. (Genesis 1-3)

Sin has to be punished. Just as we humans want justice for when some man rapes a child, God also requires payment for when bad things are done. If He didn’t, then He wouldn’t be righteous. But we humans fail to understand the true severity of our sins. We think that a lie or stealing a cookie or saying something mean-hearted doesn’t put us in the “murderer” category. They can’t be so bad, right? Wrong… Very wrong… Any sin, no matter how small it seems to us, actually disqualifies us from being perfect. Why would we want to be perfect? Because perfection is what is required to be in right standing with God. To avoid God’s wrath and punishment. So if Adam and Eve sinned, how does that affect us? Because that’s when sin first entered the world. Nature was cursed. Animals began to eat each other. Diseases, old age, death, sadness, evil thinking… These things resulted from the “Fall” as we Christians call it. The fall from perfection. The fall from a perfect standing with God. And that is why we have such terrible suffering and evil in our world. I could go on and on about how I’ve seen things happen that the Bible says will happen. Oh, it’s so sad. Everyone who sins (which is all of us) are sentenced to death (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23). And it’s not just death, it’s eternal separation from God. Trust God, you do NOT want to be there. You’ll be eternally suffering in wrath and fire. But that’s only one part of the story. The good news is that God set in action a plan to allow us to be perfected! The answer? Jesus Christ.

God foreshadowed to Adam and Eve that He would send someone to be the bridge between God and fallen humans (Genesis 3:15). We see mentions of a coming savior who would die as a sacrifice for sins. In the New Testament, God reveals that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the One who will die for the sins of the world. God loves everyone and doesn’t want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9). But only those who accept Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and believe Him will be saved (John 3:16-18).

“¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸ He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:16-18, American Standard Version).”

This is the beautiful promise of salvation to anyone! ANYONE! who believes on Jesus. Jesus Christ is actually God. Here’s where some people disagree and get off-shoots of Christianity like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, etc. No matter how good a people they might seem, they are lost according to the Bible. If you mess with the message, you lose the meaning.

But don’t worry! Reading the Bible for yourself and asking God to help you understand the Bible is all you need. But here’s the thing, make sure you use the Bible. THE Bible. A lot of false doctrines and false books can be added to the Bible and people use those extra books, which skew the foundational meaning of the Bible. Make sure to use the Holy Bible that has 66 books in it. From Genesis to Revelation. 🙂

The Gospel message is that Jesus, GOD HIMSELF!, came to pay for the sins of the entire world. How could He do this? Well, He’s God! Only God, the One so pure and so blameless and righteous, could take on all the sins of everyone and die in our place. He paid our punishment. He died in our place. He satisfied God’s wrath against our sin. Why? Because God wants to get the glory! (Remember, this isn’t selfish.) And He loves us! He loved the world! He loved His creation! He loved humans. He wants to spare us from His wrath, which no one can withstand. God the Father, sent God the Son to die in our place, and God the Spirit raised the Son from the dead. (We see the Trinity in the Gospel message!)

God raised Jesus from the dead as that was also part of the prophecy God gave His people in the Old Testament. Jesus was alive and well after His death because God raised Him from the dead! Wow! Now that’s powerful. Then after some time, Jesus ascended into heaven to the Father. Jesus returned to the Father after His time here on earth. And once He left, He sent the Holy Spirit (God the Spirit) to be with us (John 16:7). And everyone who believes and trusts Jesus as their only way to be made perfect with God, then they are saved. Saved from what? Saved from God’s wrath and punishment. But it’s a gift. You have to accept it. Otherwise, you can’t have it. But it’s free.

I’ll frame it like this, except this is such a minor thing compared to the eternal bliss on the line… You call in for 100 pizzas at your local pizza shop. You’re having a party with a LOT of people and want to have food enough to serve everyone. You go to pick them up and your credit card is declined. The pizza place is demanding payment right now or else you’re going to jail. You have no cash. Everyone at the party is ignoring you. No one on the street will help you. The pizza place can’t offer you any help either. You say you’ll work off the money in the back scrubbing dishes or something. But the pizza parlor declines as the only way you can pay for the pizza is through cash. You have no money in your bank account. You’re out of options. And the pizza place’s manager is getting ready to call the police. You’re in tears.

But then a man who’s been sitting at one of the pizza parlor’s little tables walks up to the counter and swipes his credit card and says “Everything is paid in full.” He looks at the cashier and tells her to throw in another 100 pizzas because it’s on him and he knows the amount of guests you have coming over. Just 100 won’t be enough. He smiles at you and walks out the door, but pops his head back through and says, “And anytime this person buys something from you, put it on my account.” And then he’s out the door again.

You stand there dumbfounded and with 200 pizzas.

Okay, well, this example fails in many aspects, but I hope you get my point. (And the point isn’t that we go and sin anytime we want because it’s on Jesus’s account. The point is that we can’t work our way to a right standing with God. We can’t pay our way to a right standing with God. But we have to rely on Jesus to be in a right standing with God. There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves. Only trusting in Jesus will save us.

We can’t work our way to eternal life. Salvation isn’t by works, whether that’s doing the right thing or not doing the wrong thing (Ephesians 2:8-9). But it’s actually good for us that we can’t work our way to salvation. That frees us from a burden we were never meant to carry. Instead, knowing that we don’t have to work for our salvation frees us to do good works with a pure heart! When we accept Jesus’s free gift, His sacrifice, we are freed from our sin nature (the evil in us) and can now do good things. The Holy Spirit is in those who believe and trust in Jesus! The Holy Spirit guides us and helps us to do good. He allows us to glorify God as we were intended to do from the beginning.

I will write my testimony in another post, but I have experienced His transformative grace in my life. And let me tell you, you will NOT regret believing and trusting in Jesus. Your life will change, and you will have peace that you never knew of before. Peace that is indestructible. And eternal life that is guaranteed. It’s not an easy road, but it’s the richest, most beautiful, most rewarding, and most free you can walk.

The world has it wrong. Selfishness is not the answer to happiness. Happiness isn’t the answer to life. JESUS is the answer to life and eternal life. The gap that’s in our human hearts is the gap that God is meant to fill. Will you let Him fill your heart today? It’s as simple as believing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for you and accepting His free gift: His sacrifice. Seriously, there’s no other way to salvation. It’s truly that simple.

As a result, you should have a change of heart and you make God your King, not yourself. And THAT is evidence of a changed life.