We have Good News for You

News You can Use

No one would listen to a news broadcast or read a newspaper who made up the stories. If there is a headline about a fire, a fire must have taken place. If it's just a made-up story about a fire, then it's not news--no matter how happy or meaningful the story might be. Liking something doesn't make it true.

These days, a lot of people have given up on the idea of saying anything about God or the true meaning of life. They think that if something is "true for you," then it's true enough. No one would say that about an epidemic, or a factory closing; God is invisible, though, and so it gives some people the idea that anything they believe is OK.

We don't offer you made-up news. We don't offer you a cleverly invented story. Instead, we offer you the truth, which we believe to be true. Really true. So true, in fact, that it will change your life. You may choose not to believe us, but don't say, "that works for you." Say we're wrong. Say we're mistaken. But we believer we're right--and it's news you can use.

News with a Source

Our source of news is the Bible. If you wanted to find out about the stock market, you'd read a financial newspaper or look at an investment web site. If you want to know about God, there is no better place to look than the Bible. In this collection of writings we see everything we need to give life meaning, to find favor with God, and to learn about God. In short, no one knows anything authoritative about God except what God has chosen to reveal, and God has chosen to reveal Himself in His Creation, but most clearly in His Word.

The News Isn't all Good

No one could look at the world and imagine that everything is OK. When we humans aren't killing, oppressing, or mistreating each other, there are still diseases, famines, and natural disasters. Even animals suffer. Why does God allow this?

The Bible tells us that God created the world good initially, but that the first man and woman made a conscious decision to try to be like God themselves. This deviation from God's plan, called sin, infects every human alive today and even frustrates and tortures the non-human part of creation. In a way, this might be a good thing, because if people could just fix the problem of sin, then many other kinds of suffering would also come to an end. Many people today believe that we are just another kind of animal, but the Bible says that even though we are fallen, we are still the crown of creation. We're responsible for creation's problems, and our solution is Creation's solution.

It's natural in human nature to believe that we could clean up our act and be the sort of people we ought to be. To prove that this is not true, God chose a people for his own, lavished them with promises of good things if they simply obeyed his will, and threatened them with terrible punishments if they did not. It's what people sometimes call "the carrot and the stick." Through these people, God demonstrated to the world that even given every advantage, no human could ever meet God's standards. We just aren't as good as we think we are.

This is hard for many people today to accept. We want to think of people as good. Of course, there are beautiful things in every person, no matter what their beliefs or behavior is. On a human level, this is true. Yet, staying only with human ways of doing things ends in death. If we want to escape the sentence of eternal separation from God, we must listen to what God tells us.

God's New Plan

God's plan all along was not simply to prove that we are sinners, but to provide an answer. God Himself, who existed before time began, became a human being and lived on this earth to save us. He had to become a particular person, and God became the man known as Jesus of Nazareth. This man was more than just a man; he was chosen by God, or "anointed." The word for "anointed one" in the Greek language is "Christ." God chose Jesus of Nazareth as the dwelling place for all the fullness of God almighty. It's hard to believe, but it is true.

When God Himself walked the earth, we would think that He would have been the most powerful and popular person around. No. Instead, in a world full of sin, God was rejected by his own creations. Regardless of all the good He did, and even the miracles He performed, the people of His time rejected Him and ultimately had Him put to death. There should be little doubt that this was not just their own failing, but it was the failing of a world that had fallen.

And yet, out of that death came the most beautiful Good News of all. God took all of the separation of sin on Himself when He died. The death of Jesus (the) Christ allowed God to be both totally fair and just, rejecting sin, and also merciful, forgiving sin. It's not as though our sins don't matter. They do. They result in an awful price. It's just that now finally, in Jesus Christ, God has made it possible for those sins no longer to separate us from Him.

The Kingdom of Grace

The word "grace" comes from the Greek word for "gift." In God's plan under Jesus Christ, all we need do is believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and put our trust in him, and the death of sin is itself dead in us. Not only is the penalty gone, but we are also free, for the first time in our lives, to love God not in fear only, but with love and gratitude in our hearts. The idea of "grace" takes every good think in your life and transforms them into promises of better things to come. It takes every bad thing and makes them only as tokens of the sin that is now powerless to separate us from God. We may still suffer now, but it is not for our sins. We suffer for the same reason that Jesus suffered--because anyone living in a world of sin, especially someone who is in God's kingdom, will always suffer. Yet, even these sufferings can produce good things and lead to blessing.

That is Good News you can use. It also has the power, if you let it, to transform your life. Every morning you can wake up thanking God and praising Him, even as you suffer. The victory is yours, that is assured. God's power can be at work in you. Hear His Word, believe it, put your trust in Him, and rejoice in the salvation that is God's grace, His gift, to you.