Introduction:
This is to show the way we are saved by God and Jesus. It is written in easy to understand English. The Bible translation used is the “ English Version for the Deaf.” It is the easiest to understand literal translation of the Bible.
I hope you find great joy in the simple and beautiful way we are saved. I pray we all thank God and Jesus every day for the amazing kindness they have shown to us in The Good News.
Mark Gilbert
The Good News!
Welcome to the best news in the world. It is the most powerful message on earth. It really is!
This Good News brings freedom, joy and healing to your heart. It is full of love, faith, forgiveness and acceptance. It gives the hope of life forever.
This Good News is found in the Bible. It is given to us by our Creator and is free. He loves us and wants us to be close to Him. He really wants you to love Him and have faith in Him. He really does.
The Good News is very easy to understand. God made sure the way we are saved is simple because He wants to save all of us.
The Good News is about seven things. God, Jesus, love, faith, grace, the Kingdom of God and us. This is how they are connected:
The God of Love sent His only Son, Jesus, to save us. Jesus saved us by living exactly as God asked. He never sinned – he is the only person who has done this. This means that, when Jesus died, he destroyed sin. Because he never sinned, God raised him from the dead and gave him life forever. When we believe in Jesus and want to follow him in our heart, God forgives our sins and gives us the hope of life forever. This shows us how great God’s grace (kindness) is.
God wants us to love Him, have faith in Him and faith that Jesus came to save us. God wants us to live a life full of love, faith and grace. When we do this we become part of the Kingdom of God. In the future, Jesus will return, and he will raise us from the dead and give us eternal life. We will then be in the Kingdom of God forever.
That’s it! The teaching of the Bible that saves us is easy to understand and is wonderful. There are many other teachings in the Bible that can help us in life. These other teachings are given to help us grow in love, faith and grace.
We will look at the places in the Bible that tell us about the Good News. The first is a question a man asks Jesus. It is the most important question we could ask:
¹ “Teacher, what must I do to get life forever?”
Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The man answered, “ ‘you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ Also, ‘you must love other people the same as you love yourself.’” Jesus said to him, “Your answer is right. Do this and you will have life forever.”
Wow! It’s that simple. Jesus could have given the man a long list of things he must do or a long list of teachings he must believe. He didn’t. Love is all we need to gain eternal life. One of Jesus followers said this about love:
²“…we know the love that God has for us. And we trust that love. God is love. The person who lives in love lives in God. And God lives in that person. If Gods love is made perfect in us, then we can be without fear on the day when God judges us…” (The day God judges us is the time when we meet Jesus. Jesus will give us eternal life if we have lived a life of love.)
It is clear that living a life of love is what God is looking for, when we are judged by Him. The way we try to love God, Jesus and other people is like this:
³“ I may speak in different languages of men or even angels. But if I don’t have love, then I am only a noisy bell or a ringing cymbal.
¹ Luke 10v25-28; ² 1 John 4v16-17; ³ 1 Corinthians 13v1-8
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I may have the gift of prophecy; I may understand all the secret things of God and know everything; and I may have faith so great that I can move mountains. But even with all these things, if I don’t have love, then I am nothing. I may give everything I have to feed people. And I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing by doing these things if I don’t have love. Love is patient, and love is kind. Love is not jealous, it does not boast, and it is not proud. Love is not rude, love is not selfish, and love does not become angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. Love is not happy with evil, but love is happy with the truth. Love patiently accepts all things. Love always trusts, always hopes, and always continues strong. Love never ends.”
When we truly love God, we have faith in Him.
¹“… The important thing is faith – the kind of faith that works through love.” We cannot separate love and faith. They are linked to each other. There are many examples of this in the Bible:
²“ We thank God because we have heard about the faith you have in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all of Gods people”.
³“… the grace of our Lord was fully given to me. And with that grace came faith and love that are in Christ Jesus”.
¹ Galatians 5v6; ² Colossians 1v4; ³ 1 Timothy 1v14
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¹“ … God’s work is done by faith. The goal of this command is for people to have love. To have this love people must have a pure heart, they must do what they know is right, and they must have true faith.”
²“ I hear about the love you have for all God’s holy people and the faith you have in the Lord Jesus. And I thank God for that love and faith you have.”
This is the reason God also says we are saved by our faith in Him. The most well known verse in the Bible says: ³“Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. God gave his Son so that every person that believes in him would not be lost, but have life forever.” When we believe (have faith) in Jesus we have life forever. This same clear teaching is repeated many times in the Bible, so we don’t get confused. Here are some examples:
¹¹“The person that believes in the Son has life forever. But the person that does not obey the Son will never have that life”.
²²“Men, what must I do to be saved?”
They said to him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved – you and all the people living in your house.”
³³“I write this letter to you people who believe in the Son of God. I write so that you will know that you have eternal life now.”
¹ 1 Timothy 1v4-5; ² Philemon v5; ³ John 3v16
¹¹ John 3v36; ²² Acts 16v30-31; ³³ 1 John 5v13
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¹“I am proud of the Good News. The Good News is the power God uses to save every person that believes – to save the Jews first, and also to save the non-Jews.” The Good News shows how God makes people right with Himself. Gods way of making people right begins and ends with faith. Like the Scripture says, “The person that is right with God by faith will live forever.”
² “So, “God accepted Abrahams faith. That made him right with God” Those words (“God accepted Abrahams faith “) were written not only for Abraham. Those words were also written for us. God will also accept us because we believe. We believe in the One (God) that raised Jesus our Lord from death. Jesus was given to die for our sins. And he was raised from death to make us right with God.
We have been made right with God because of our faith. So we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.. Through our faith, Christ has brought us into that blessing of Gods grace (kindness) that we now enjoy. And we are very happy because of the hope we have of sharing Gods glory. And we are also very happy with the troubles we have. Why are we happy with troubles? Because we know that these troubles make us more patient. And this patience is proof we are strong. And this proof gives us hope. And this hope will never disappoint us – it will never fail. Why? Because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. God gave us His love through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was a gift to us from God.”
¹ Romans 1v16-17; ² Romans 4v22-5v5
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We now understand from the Bible:
Faith in God and Jesus is the way we get life forever.
Faith is the way we have peace with God.
Faith is the way we are made right with God.
Faith is the way we are accepted by God.
Faith is the way we receive God’s grace
Faith is the way we receive God’s Holy Spirit (His power inside us to help us).
God made faith the way we are saved because he wanted to save everyone! This is the greatest news on earth! We can all have faith and be happy, free and thankful to God for this simple and easy way He has chosen to save us. We never need to fear we are not good enough. We want to follow God and Jesus because of the way God has chosen to save us.
There are other important reasons why God chose to save us through love and faith. Here are two:
“God is love.” He wants us to be like Him.
God wants your heart. He wants you to choose to follow Him. Love and faith both come from your heart. Love and faith are also your choice. You can’t be forced to love someone. You can’t be forced to have faith in someone. These reasons make The Good News wonderful and intimate.
We have seen that love and faith are linked to each other and can’t be separated. In the same way, faith and grace are linked to each other and can’t be separated. Because we have faith, the grace of God and Jesus is given to us. The grace of God and Jesus is with us always. Here are some examples:
¹“Through our faith, Christ has brought us into that blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy.”
²“I mean that you are saved by grace. And you got that grace by believing (faith). You did not save yourselves. It was a gift from God.”
Because faith and grace are linked, we are saved by faith and also grace. We are made right with God through faith and grace. Here are some Bible examples about grace:
³“…I want to finish the work the Lord Jesus gave me to do – to tell people the Good News about God’s grace.”
¹¹“… we believe that we (Jews) and these people (non-Jewish people) will be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
²²“People are made right with God by His grace. This is a free gift. People are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ.”
We are saved by love, faith and grace. We are called by God and Jesus to live lives full of love, faith and grace. Love, faith and grace give us courage and strength to do good in our lives. The great purpose of the Bible is for us to show love, faith and grace to all people. From the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible God always wants us to behave the right way to Him and all people. This is the reason He gave us the Bible. Here are some examples from the Bible:
¹ Romans 5v2; ² Ephesians 2v8; ³ Acts 20v24
¹¹ Acts 15v11; ²² Romans 3v24..................................................................................................................
¹“That grace teaches us not to live against God and not to do the bad things the world wants to do. That grace teaches us to live on earth now in a wise and right way – a way that shows we serve God. We should live like that while we are waiting for the coming of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is our great hope, and he will come with glory. He gave himself for us. He died to free us from all evil. He died to make a pure people that belong only to him – people that are always wanting to do good things.”
²“We were made right with God by His grace. And God gives us the Spirit (His power inside us to help us do good) so that we could receive the life that never ends. That is what we hope for. This teaching is true. And I want you to be sure that the people understand these things. Then the people who believe in God will be careful to use their lives for doing good. These things are good and will help all people.”
³“… if a person says that he has faith, but does nothing, then that faith is worth nothing. Can faith like that save him? No! A brother or sister in Christ might need clothes or food to eat. And you say to that person, “God be with you! I hope you stay warm and get plenty to eat.” You say these things, but you don’t give that person those things he needs. If you don’t help that person, your words are worth nothing. It is the same with faith. If faith does nothing, then that faith is dead, because it is alone.”
¹ Titus 2v12-14; ² Titus 3v7-8; ³ James 2v14-17
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¹“One law rules over all other laws. This royal law is found in the Scriptures: “Love other people the same as you love yourself.” If you obey this law then you are doing right. But if you are treating one person like he is more important than another person, then you are sinning. That royal law proves that you are guilty of breaking God’s law.”
²“Do to other people the same things you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”
I pray this booklet has helped us all grow in understand God and what He wants from us. I hope you are encouraged to build your relationship with God and Jesus through reading the Bible and prayer. I pray you find all the joy, freedom, healing and acceptance that is in the Good News of the Bible.
¹ James 2v8-9; ² Matthew 7v12
