What Makes Good News Good

What Makes Good News Good? - By Lance Cummins

If you hang out with Restoration Church much at all, you’ll hear us talk about the Good News. That phrase, Good News, almost sounds like paradox, because almost all of the things we associate with news is bad news. But, we really do have some Good News.

It’s this.

Most of us know intrinsically that there must be someone (or something) somewhere who is paying attention to what goes on in this life. We commonly refer to this being as God. We have this general sense that there is something we need to do to sort of “pass God’s test” so we’re ok.

Most of us also have the gut feeling that we’re not actually succeeding at that test. So, we respond in one of two ways:

1.We simply try to stuff the feeling that we are accountable to some invisible thing, and we do our best to live without inflicting too much damage on others. And we just hope for the best when the “test” comes.
2.Or, we engage in a systematic process of trying to “appease” this invisible taskmaster through something we call religion. We hope that we’ve done enough. And we just hope for the best when the “test” comes.
You see, either way, you’re left with the uneasy feeling that you might not be good enough. And that’s the first piece of Good News. You’re not good enough.

How is that Good News?

Because once you realize that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t succeed in making up for the times you’ve failed, you are actually very close to an incredible discovery.

This “invisible, impersonal force” we call God has actually described Himself in an amazing collection of writings we call the Bible, as a loving Father. What’s more, you will see as you begin to read the Bible, that God knew we would try to be good, but we couldn’t. And, because He loved us so much, He already made a way for us to “pass the test.” He let someone else take it for us.

We find out as we read on, that God has a Son, Jesus. Although He was completely God, He became a person just like you and me, so He could take our test. He succeeded at what you and I could never do: He lived a perfect life. However He didn’t stop there.

You see, something you may not have realized is that because we have all done wrong things (the Bible calls this sin), we surrendered our opportunity to be with God in eternity. We were destined to separation from God. Forever. Unless…someone who had NEVER sinned took our place.

That’s exactly what Jesus did.

He lived a perfect life knowing that he would willingly sacrifice his life in a Roman public execution in shame and humiliation.

He took all the sin of humanity on himself, and experienced separation from his Father, so that we could be restored to our loving Father.

How are we restored?

God explains it this way in Scripture:

“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

When we recognize that God reached to us by sending Jesus, instead of us reaching to God, we accept that Jesus is the hero of this story and not us.

God gives us credit for what Jesus did, and allows us eternal life based on Jesus’ sacrifice. Pretty amazing, huh?

That’s why we call it Good News. Being right with God doesn’t mean being better, or being religious. It means accepting God’s plan through Jesus.

The Good News is that God has reached out to you. And He invites you to believe that Jesus did that for you.