You can get good news from all sorts of places – politics, religion, economics, the arts. This gospel is the good news about Jesus:

God made the universe and he made you. He loves you because you are his precious creation – his child. He knows and loves every single human being regardless of their age, race, gender, sexuality, profession, history and background. God does not love you because you are rich, sexy or powerful and definitely not because he thinks you are perfect….

Our wars, our greed, our divisions decimate our planet and shatter our peace. The same greed and selfish pride create havoc in our own lives and families. It also alienates us from our loving God. Religion says that if you try hard enough, you can deal with selfish pride in your life and impress God. Jesus exposed this as a lie — he said that this selfish pride (or sin) comes out from the inside of us – from our hearts. When people try really hard to be good, they know that sin is a real issue. Some really religious people — Mother Theresa, Mohandas Ghandi, Saul of Tarsus — have written about this painful realisation. Ghandi wrote:  ‘it is the evil passions within which keep me so far from Him.’ God is gutted by the mess we have made of the world and the fact that we go so far from him.

The Bible says that Jesus revealed perfectly who God is. He called himself God’s son – not because there’s a Mrs God who bore a son to Mr God – but because he is one with God, the exact representation of who God is.  Jesus showed us how to live a life of selfless love. He died to take the punishment that we deserve for our selfishness, to absorb the violence and evil of the world and to heal our separation from God. Then (and this is the best bit) he came back to life, showing that we can overcome death and the fear of death through faith in him — just like he said. Jesus said that he would send supernatural power to his followers when he went back to heaven to change them so that they could transform the world.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is coming – that one day every wrong will be righted, justice will be completely done and we will be fully reconciled to one another and God. In the meantime, he invites us to get on board with bringing about reconciliation with him and with one another in this life. Christians are people who say sorry to God for their selfishness, imitate Jesus in their lifestyle and rely on the supernatural power that comes from the cross and resurrection of Jesus to relate to him, change our own lives from the inside out and transform the world. We’d love you to join us.

The Good News section of our website contains loads of links and resources to help you explore this good news for yourself. That’s also what CSBC is here for - have a look around the website and come along to any of our activities to find out more.