You are constantly being bombarded with ads for the new and improved versions of many of your favorite products. A few years ago, one of my favorite products, Coca-Cola put out a new and improved version. It didn't last. I think of computers and software. If you bought a new machine last week, it will be outdated next week. And you may have the greatest, most powerful software to go with it, but soon they will be offering you the new and improved version. Finally, Dodge is advertising their cars and trucks with the slogan "This changes everything." In an age when everything is constantly changing and being improved, there is only one thing that will really make a difference that counts. Only one thing really changes everything . . . the gospel, the good news, of Jesus Christ.

What stays the same in most people's lives is the thing we call "sin." It is missing the target, the standard that God has set. If the standard is bullseye we don't even get it to the target let alone anywhere near the center. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." It is because we all sin that we are separated from God forever and deserve death. But the good news comes in the next verse: we can be "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Jesus, being God, lived and he died, but he died in your place and mine so that God could see us as being right before him, instead of seeing us in our sin. This is the gospel, the message of Jesus. When you depend upon him and only him for this deliverance that he offers, several things change for the better in your life. Here are four positive changes because of the good news of Jesus.

Because of believing the good news of Jesus Christ, you have someone in whom to trust in the present and you can have true hope for the future. You also have someone who is concerned about your past hurts and struggles, and he alone can heal those pains.

One woman writes, "My great-great uncle lived to the ripe old age of 106. He was healthy and spry and took joy in chauffering his less able-bodied senior friends around town. On his 100th birthday, his driver's license came up for renewal. When he went to the licensing bureau, the skeptical clerk said, `You're 100 years old! What do you need a driver's license for?' My uncle, completely nonplussed, replied, `Somebody has to drive the old folks around!' He continued to have a legal driver's license for the next five years." That's a hopeful outlook on life.

You have hope because you have Jesus in your life. 1 Peter 1 talks about hope, that we have been given and living hope because Jesus died and then rose from the dead. He conquered death - what could be more hopeless than death? But Jesus gained the victory over it. The chapter continues by talking about suffering grief and trials, yet in the middle of them we can have joy and peace because we have a hope that will last through all of the difficulties of life, and it is a hope that insures us of having a home in heaven with Jesus.

Not only do we have a new and lasting hopeful outlook on life because of Jesus, but we also have a new destination. You can live in "the here and now" with the hope of spending all of eternity with God and with others like you who love him and have turned to him for forgiveness of sin. 2 Peter 3.10-12 tells us that destruction will come to this earth. But in the midst of that prophecy about this earth, we are told that we can look forward to being a part of the new heaven and earth if you know Jesus. We can spend eternity in a place of paradise, not a place of torment.

Believing the gospel also brings about a change in how you live. Knowing Jesus will help you make better moral choices, choices that conform to his desires for your life. Again Peter writes (1 Pet 4:1-3) that Christ's sufferings because of our sins means that we should stop living in those sins and start living for the will of God. He tells us that we should no longer live the way we had been living before we knew God, and he lists some things that are often a part of the lifestyle of people that do not know God. Some of these are worshiping other things, being lustful, and giving yourself over to alcohol. He says we should leave the old sinful way of life, and by his power live a new kind of life that conforms to his will.

A businessman owned a warehouse which had sat empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and trash was everywhere inside the building. The businessman showed a prospective buyer the property and took great pains to say he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage and clean out all the garbage. "Forget about the repairs," the buyer said. "When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different , something entirely new. I don't want the building. I just want the site." God wants to renovate your life from the inside out, and your adding a good work he or this is nothing compared to the good work God wants to do in you.

Finally, because we believed in the good news of Jesus, God changes our motivation. Why do we do the things we do, even the good things? What motivates you to be kind to others and to tell the truth and to live a new kind of lifestyle? Paul's letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:14-15) tells us the it is Christ's love which motivates us to love others and to live properly and to tell them about Jesus love for them. Because he loved you enough to die for you, it is only natural that you respond to his love by loving him back enough to want to please him. We don't live to please ourselves anymore, we live to please him. Knowing and trusting Jesus gives you new reasons for living the right way. Instead of looking out just for yourself, you can live with his interests in mind, knowing he will provide for every one of your needs.

Will Willimon wrote, " If we or the world could be saved through human kindness or clear thinking, Jesus either would have a sensitivity group and urged us to share our feelings or would have founded a school and asked us to have discussions. But knowing the ways of God, the way of the world, and the persistence of human sin, he took up the cross, called disciples, gathered the church, and bade us to follow him down a different path of freedom."