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Good News
Justin SmithRomans 1:1-3
This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. The Good News is about his Son.
When posed with the statement “I’ve got good news and bad news…” I’m one who always chooses to hear the good news first. I don’t know if it’s due to an intrinsic flaw in my character, but there’s something about the joy of the “good news” that makes the “bad news” seem, well, less bad. Naturally, when Romans 1 led off with Paul finding great joy in being an ambassador of the Good News, I identified with him immediately, as it makes the bad news, the tough times, the difficult circumstances, the exhaustion of life seem less “bad”. But today I was given an amazing paradigm shifting lesson as the Holy Spirit took me to school. The powerful thing about God’s Good News is that rather than it making the bad news seem less bad, the bad news makes the Truth of God’s Good News even more good, more precious, more valuable. Rather than it merely lightening the weight that one is currently bearing, it transforms their perspective with not only hope, but purpose, reason, and motivation for this life under the sun.
For that mom struggling with staying at home with the kids, it doesn’t merely mitigate her vexation, rather, it morphs her vision. She is no longer just trying to cope with the day’s bad news of crying, fits, and frustration; she is now commissioned to empower, infuse, and equip a future world changer and Good News bearer. This perspective shift is ever so slight yet ever so supernatural. It’s fixing one’s eyes on the eternal rather than the temporal, the divine rather than the daily grind. The bad news of the law of sin and death and man’s desperation and hopelessness, as God turned the people over to their desires is truly bad, and the blow isn’t softened by the Good News…it is completely solved, remedied, forever transformed.
May the bad news of our propensity to sin, to failure, and the flesh make us eternally grateful for the beauty of God’s grace, forgiveness, and freedom.
Lord Jesus, today I am overwhelmed by the Good News! The News of grace, forgiveness, and freedom doesn't make the bad news of sin and judgment less bad; rather it completely transform it, and for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you for taking my punishment, for loving me enough to die, and for covering me with Your blood. May my life look different today, as I bear and live out the Good News!
In Jesus' name, Amen.
