Sometimes I wonder if our enthusiasm for evangelism is at a low ebb because we’ve lost a sense of just how much good news the gospel is. We know the word “gospel” literally means good news, but sometimes appear to have forgotten just how good it is! This can especially be the case when we are engaged in apologetic discussions with people who dislike the message because it challenges the supremacy of their dearly loved idols – and they angrily resist it. Much of the cultural seas in which we have swum for the last few dacades have asserted that the Bible is actually harmful. We are so accustomed to our faith being given ‘trigger warnings’ or of people trying to ban it that we have absorbed something of that messaging. We might not have embraced their scepticism – but it certainly seems to have dampened our enthusiasm.
There was a young man from India who became a Christian at a Western university as part of a CU mission. He was persuaded that Jesus rose from the dead, and he asked if he could become a Christian. He assumed that there would be any number of classes and courses and exams and difficult steps to overcome before he could become a Christian, but was astonished to hear that Christ had done it all for him, that he could actually come to Christ and become a Christian right then and there – immediately folded in the grace of God – because the gospel is that good. Christ has done it all for us. Have we ever lost a sense of just how good that is, how extraordinary that is, and what a unique message it is – that we don’t have to prove ourselves to God, but that at the cross, Christ has done everything for us to reconcile us to God, to share with us his unsearchable riches, and to reconcile us to God forever? That young man, seeing the goodness of the gospel for the first time and embracing it with joyful abandon, saw what some of us have lost. The gospel is good, good news!
God is love, and the gospel is the overflow of the internal love of the Trinity. It’s extraordinary. It’s good. Maybe recapturing something of just what good news the gospel is will fire us up to share it more widely and enthusiastically too.
Prayer: Lord, renew my mind and move my heart so that I rejoice in the gospel of Christ with an infectious enthusiasm which proclaims that your gospel is good news for all who will receive it. Amen.
