What is the Good News?

The Good News at its heart is a declaration that Jesus Christ is in charge, he is Lord of all. The resurrection of Jesus was a vindication of his claims to have "all authority" and that he had a special relationship to God the Father (I and the Father are one). Jesus's death was in obedience to God the Father and in it he accomplished his great victor over sin and death. The Good News is that Jesus in in charge, the Good News is also that Jesus in his death has wind for us the victory over sin and death. This latter victory means that those who recognise him as Lord and choose to follow him get to receive the blessing of eternal life that he brings. This receiving of eternal life as a free victory gift from Jesus is also called being "born again". This is all so well known even Wiki gets it right, as we discussed on The Good News Show recently. But it needs to be appropriated personally to be effective, that is, each person needs to not only know it, but act on it. And to act on it is to believe.

Good New Year to You

Article by George Cross in 1967 In 1967 George Cross predicted that in the 21st Century Ice Hockey games would no longer have boards round them to prevent the puck going out of bounds. Rather, he surmised that the game would be surrounded by a force field. This is rather a prosaic use of the futuristic concept of force-fields. However, lasers are used for life changing surgery on eyes and to improve self esteem in plastic surgery. They are not used that often as the weapon so beloved in Sci Fi stories of old. You never know what the future may hold. One thing that George Cross did not predict was that Ice Hockey would not be around. There were certain things he assumed would remain constant. But with the culture around us changing at a dizzying pace there is little that we can assume will remain constant. This is unsettling. However we can be confident that the Lord Jesus Christ will be here , the same Lord, Saviour and friend. He will be wit...

Do what the Bible says.

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight”. 1 John 3:22 When we read the Bible, when we hear from God, we need to put it into practice . It is the concept behind the words that are important. Words can come to us in a variety of different media. We can hear them being spoken. We can listen to them on our iPod as we go jogging. We could read them printed on paper, we can read them on a Kindle or even our mobile phone. The words can come in all different shapes, sizes, colors but these words have meaning behind them and if the meaning of the words comes from God then they can have an impact on our life but they’ll only have an impact if we do what they say, otherwise, it is like God casting his pearls before swine. We are simply not throwing back the riches that we’re being offered. “Do not give dogs what is highly valued and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them on the...

Happiness, truth and reconciliation

An article that appeared in USA Today had this title: “Psychologists now know what makes you happy.” And the writer discovered a not-so-surprising fact, forgiveness is most strongly linked to happiness and the Bible closely links forgiveness with healing. "Forgiveness is the trait most strongly linked to happiness", said University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson. T he Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, in removing revenge from the agenda, brought, to a certain extent, forgiveness and healing to the country. There are reported to be still deep divisions in the country of South Africa. However, the situation would have been far worse, most political commentators agree, if revenge had been left to take it's course. Truth is important, but so is reconciliation. At a personal level forgiveness also has a profound effect. The psychologists are right on this one. Happiness is closely linked to forgiveness. The truth is t...

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