What is the "Gospel" anyway?
(What we believe in here at CenterWeb)

So, you may vaguely know that there might be a God around, but you don't know much about him, who he is, whether he exists... Most people are quite content feeling this way, but is there any kind of meaning to life? Read on to find out. To illustrate my point, let me tell you a short story...

While on a hike in an area of marshy land, three men stumbled through some trees and then thought they could see something glinting not far away. They figured that it could be something worth picking up, so they began to walk towards it. They could see it clearly now, a large silver coin lay on the ground a few metres away. As they approached, it suddenly shot away from them. Having, as most people do, about twice as much greed as common sense, they ran after it. After only a few metres, the ground felt slightly soft, but the men could see the coin so close now, that they didn't even feel it, -until it was too late. The first of the three put his foot down onto what should have been soft-ish mud, and instead off being able to run on, he found himself floundering waste deep in muddy water, sinking further and further down. The second of the three tried to stop, but the third, as his view had been blocked by the second man, hadn't had time to stop, so they both fell into the quicksand as well.

Through the trees the heard a laugh: a laugh that was of pleasure at the men's misfortune... A boy walked out from between the trees, with coin dangling from a length of twine that was almost invisible. He watched them struggling in the marsh for a moment, then laughed again and ran off. The men were soon all shoulder-deep in the heavy sand, they couldn't get out, and were slowly sinking. They shouted, screamed... you name it, they tried every way of making noise there is.

Finally a young man dressed in a ranger's clothes ran over: As soon as he saw the men, he immediately began to pull them out. As he was helping to haul the last of the three out, he fell into the bog himself. The men of course tried to pull him out, but they couldn't: he was much shorter than them, and their floundering had made the "hole" in the quicksand much deeper. The young rescuer was quickly sucked beneath the surface of the mud. The men couldn't believe it: it should have been them in there, they didn't have a long life to look forward to like that young man! Why did it have to end up that way? He didn't deserve to die that way!

You may think that the story has a somewhat sad ending. True, it does, but what it illustrates does not. God's own son, Jesus, came down to earth and pulled us out of the quicksand. He died, was subjected to the worst kind of slow death imaginable, and all for us. He hadn't done anything wrong: he was perfect and blameless, and yet He died for us to pull us out of the quicksand of our greed and selfishness! He loves us so much that when He saw that we were doing wrong, He came and died for us, the whole of humanity, to save us. God cares about you, he wants to be able to treat you as His "child". The reason Jesus had to die for us is because God can't have any kind of relationship with you if you have done anything wrong. When Jesus died He made it possible for us to ask God to forgive us for what we've done wrong, and thereby we can have a relationship with God. God's book, the Bible, tells us how we should behave, what is wrong and right, and also gives a large amount of history from when the earth first came into existence, to a bit over 2000 years ago. The Bible tells us that if we ask God to forgive us and obey what he has told us in the Bible then we will be able to live with Him in heaven forever when we die. Life with God is indescribable: He will help you and encourage you when you feel down, and he will show you what to do when you don't know. God is the most amazing person you could ever imagine.

Do you want to know God? Do you want a spiritual father who cares for you and loves you? If your answer is yes, then a good start would be to close your eyes, and say the following to him:
God, I know I've done wrong. I know I haven't lived the way you wanted. Please forgive me for all the wrong things I have done. Please help me to come to know you, help me to be able to trust you and obey you. Lord God, thank you for being my spiritual father, please be close to me now and always.

We at CenterWeb believe that God exists, he is there, and what's more, he loves you, (yes, YOU, he does, honest!), and he cares about you. That's our purpose for being here. Please think over what you've just read, and e-mail us at centerweb@domini.org with any questions you have on this.

A site you might want to take a look at is Two ways to live, which explains this much more graphically.