What is the Good News? To sum it up very simply....whether you are a christian or not God no longer counts your sins against you. Wow! Sounds like heresy!

Think of it like this: I have a bank account and it is empty or most likely in the negative. I owe big time. But I have no funds or resources on my own to pay my debtors. I am bankrupt. But here is the truth. God has ALREADY wired a deposit into your account but you have to access it, receive it. Sign for it. Remove the "hold" on it. When you receive Gods son Jesus as your payment for sin it is credited to your account as righteousness. When you received Jesus as savior the transaction was complete! Like an electronic transaction, in an instant, the debt was cleared. 

Honestly it is paid even if you never do anything, but you must sign the agreement, receive the Son, for the funds transfer to be recorded into the book of life. It's like the money is in a holding tank with your name on it waiting for your "yes"so it can be released into your bank account. God has already set the money aside for you, so use it.

"However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. "

Romans 4:5

"God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 

2 Corinthians 5: 19-21