The bad news, spiritually speaking, is that we are all sinners deserving of hell for our sin against a holy God (Romans 3:23; 6:23). Our sin has kept us from His presence and eternal life (John 3:15–20). No one can earn his or her way into the presence of God because there is “no one righteous” (Romans 3:10). Our best human efforts to please God are “as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Some evangelists and street preachers focus exclusively on this aspect of God’s truth, which could be considered the “bad news approach.”
The good news is that God loves us (John 3:15–18). He wants a relationship with His human creation and has communicated with us in a variety of ways such as nature (Romans 1:20), the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16), and Jesus coming in human form to live among us (John 1:14). God does love us. He does want to bless us. He wants a relationship with us and desires to teach us His ways so that we can become all He created us to be (Romans 8:29). Teachers who focus only on the good news are leaving out a vital part of God’s plan of salvation, which includes repentance (Matthew 3:2; Mark 6:12) and taking up our cross to follow Jesus (Luke 9:23).
