Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/1241844
LIVING THE GOOD NEWS Dare To Share Ministries The word gospel means "good news" and is explained by the following six key truths of the G . O . S . P . E . L . G od created us to be with Him. (Genesis 1 - 2) In these two chapters God creates all of the universe and everything in it (Genesis 1:1), including the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. God created Adam and Eve with purpose. He called them to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) and fill the earth with their offspring. He gave them the mission of taking care of the earth and tending the Garden of Eden . (Genesis 2:15) God made them to be in complete fellowship with Him and with each other. Their nakedness (Genesis 2:25) represented the fact that they had no sin, therefore no shame, therefore nothing to h ide before God or each other. They regularly communed with God in the garden and had sheer bliss, pure happiness and unadulterated joy. It was during this time that they were living everyday as God intended, in right relationship with each other, God and H is creation. The only command God gave to them was not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the same way God made us to be in fellowship with Him. His original plan was that you and I w ould be in absolute and perfect rel ationship with Him and with each other in total unity. God created us to be in harmony with all of heaven and all of earth. But that plan was disrupted by one evil act thousands and thousands of years ago. O ur sins separate us from God. (Genesis 3) When A dam and Eve were tempted by Satan and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:6), and thereby sinned, they immediately became aware of their "error." They sewed fig leaves together to cover their shame and hid in the garden from God (G enesis 3:7,8). Now they were hiding from the one that they used to fellowship with regularly. Men and women have been hiding from God ever since, covering their sin and shame with the fig leaves of religion or philosophy. PAGE 4 / www.BlackSheepHDFC.org God confronted them face to face. As a result of their sin there were immediate and future consequences. The immediate consequences were being banished from the garden (Genesis 3:23,24), having difficulty in childbirth (Genesis 3:16) and our work turning from a joy that we love to a job t hat we hate (Genesis 3:17 - 19). The future consequence for Adam and Eve was physical death. God had promised in Genesis 2:17 that the day t he y sinned by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that t he y would "surely die." Spiritually Adam and Eve died the day they sinned in the garden. Their souls became immediately polluted by sin and selfishness. As a result , all of their offspring (and that includes you and me) were born sinful and selfish. Through A dam every person ever born is born deprived and depraved, deprived of God's fellowship and depraved to the core (Romans 5:12 - 14). When confronted by God the blame game begins. Adam blames Eve (Genesis 3:12) and Eve blames the snake (Genesis 3:13). Humanity has been playing the blame game ever since. What began as paradise unraveled with a single choice to disobey God and listen to Satan instead. Every war, famine, argument, sin and tragedy can be traced back to the garden of Eden where Adam and Eve chose to turn their backs on God for a taste of fruit. S ins can 't be removed by good deeds. (Gen 4 – Ma l 4) From the beginning humanity has attempted to remove the stain of sin by good deeds. When Cain offered God vegetables as an appeasement for his sin God rej ected it (Genesis 4:1 - 4). Cain was infuriated and killed his brother Abel. In Exodus, the second book of the Bible, God gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:1 - 17), not to save them from their sin, but to show them that they couldn't live up to his perfect standards on their own (Galatians 3:23 - 24). Instead of looking to Him in faith many of the Jews looked to themselves and thought they could please God in their own strength. But God saw their "righteous" deeds like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Even the best of their good deeds were corrupted by selfish motives.