The first thing Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark is: "The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

The Good News, or Gospel, seems to be a big thing ;-) What is it?

It is termed "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24), "the gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. 4:23), "the gospel of Christ" (Rom. 1:16), "the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:15), "the glorious gospel," "the everlasting gospel," "the gospel of salvation" (Eph. 1:13). (according to Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary). I'd like to know your views...

It also seems that disagreement on what exactly the gospel is causes division in the church. You get things like "The Gospel of the Prayer of Jabez" (of 1 Chronicles 4:10 fame by Bruce Wilkenson) or "The Gospel of Your Best Life Now" (by Joel Osteen) or "The Gospel of a Purpose Driven Life" (by Dr. Rick Warren.)

All those books authors would probably say all the "right things" when pressured, but it seems to me there is this constant drive to market things as good news to Christians which aren't the Good News. Is this because the Good News isn't good enough? Jesus said that when we drank of his water, we would no longer thirst (John 4:14) so what is up with all this thirsting?