What To Do With Good News

What to Do with Good News

We’re not so very accustomed to good news. In fact, it is usually just the opposite. We’re bombarded with not-so-good news—so much of it that we’ve almost become numb. The market is falling? Unemployment is rising? Wars or rumors of wars abound? Gridlock seizes Washington? No kidding. It’s the norm. On a personal front, I’ve realized that I don’t often expect the news to be good—and I am likely to be mistrusting of it when it appears to be. Even so, a recent trip to the mailbox turned up two unlikely pieces of good news. My local energy provider sent me a check (resulting from a class action lawsuit for overcharging thousands of customers), and an insurance premium actually went down. Neither windfall amounted to much, granted, but I viewed both as good news!

The best thing we can do with good news is to receive it, and the best news I’ve ever heard and received is this: “Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us” (Romans 5:1). Does that sound too good to be true? It’s not. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might” (Romans 5:6-7, NIV). Maybe. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8).

That’s the Good News. And my heart tells me that even though it sounds more far fetched than an overpayment reimbursement or a favorably adjusted premium, I can believe it. So I’ve done what is rightly done with good news: I’ve received it. And every single day of my life I mean to demonstrate my unwavering belief in God’s great Good News by what I say and by how I live and love.

Because the gospel is not too good to be true. It’s too true to be anything but good.

God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21