June 12, 2007

 

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

--Romans 6:23

 

When we share our faith with others, we love telling the Good News part, don’t we?

 

We love to talk about the love, the grace, the power of God to save, and the forgiveness of God. That’s the wonderful good news of the Good News. We love to talk about heaven and we should!

 

But then there’s that troubling other side, the difficult side that Jesus talked about: hell. In fact, Jesus talked about hell more than He talked about heaven. He talked about judgment. And the Bible talks about how people without Christ are spiritually dead. And we are told that the wages of sin is death.

 

While most people don’t like to talk about that too much, integrity demands that we tell the Good News and the bad news. Because it’s the bad news that makes the Good News the Good News!

 

Now, let me ask you a simple question today: Do you want someone to tell you the truth or do you just want them to tell you something to make you feel better?

 

If we’re going to have integrity with our message and our mission in our witness for Christ, all of us must be willing to tell people the truth!

 

If God is going to use you, you must be a person with integrity…which means telling people the Good News and the bad news! Which will make the Good News truly…GOOD NEWS!

 

it’s the bad news that makes the good news the good news!