There is usually one truth that stands out to me. This year it’s the fact that The Gospel, embodied in the Cross, has brought us the good news of eternal life that we are to share with the whole world.
I love hearing The Gospel described as “the good news.” I think it brings to life just how amazing and significant Jesus’ death was to free us from the bondage of sin. Colossians 2:13-15 says,
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
What an awesome picture of victory in Jesus!
The Bible refers to The Gospel as “the good news” on several occasions when it was shared by early Christians in the New Testament. The reference that most warms my heart is in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.
The Holy Spirit had led Philip down a desert road where he would encounter the eunuch, an important government official who was religious but had not yet heard The Gospel. The eunuch had just gone to Jerusalem to worship, indicating that he believed in the God of the Jews, Yahweh. The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, p. 374. He had stopped on the road and was reading Scripture aloud, as was customary in the day. He read a prophecy about Jesus’ death in Isaiah 53:7,8.
As Philip approached him, he asked the eunuch if he understood what he was reading (v. 30), to which he replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” (v. 31). Verse 35 includes the special words: “Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus." The Bible says that shortly after Philip explained The Gospel, the eunuch received it and rejoiced (vv. 36-39).
Acts, and the letters to the churches (Epistles) in the New Testament, tell the story of people who were going about their lives as usual when they heard the good news. There was Cornelius in Acts 10, the Italian military officer who was also God fearing. He was introduced to The Gospel by the Apostle Peter, who had to overcome his own prejudice to share it with him. There also was Lydia in Acts 16, a businesswoman who had also been a worshipper of God. And there were people who, in some cases, had settled into married life and then came to trust Christ, while their spouses still had not. And we cannot forget the Apostle Paul, who was going about persecuting Christians when he encountered God – and his eyes were opened to the good news.
The converts in the early church in many ways represent us. At the Holy Spirit’s direction, someone told these people in various walks of life about the message of the cross, and, at the Spirit’s leading, they believed – just like someone had to tell us the good news so we could believe.
And in Scripture we read about the challenges and triumphs the early church had as they learned what it meant to follow Jesus daily after conversion. Because of the good news, they could experience the life change found only in Jesus – and we can experience the same difference today.
The cross is a gift that we are meant to keep sharing! Just as followers of Christ in the New Testament spread the good news to whole world, so we, as little Christs, are commanded to do the same.
There are so many people out there, going about life as usual, whom God wants to transform with the power of The Gospel. He wants us to proclaim it to our coworkers, classmates, friends, family – even strangers! He wants them to know that, while they were still sinners, Christ died for them.
Over the last couple years God has really been convicting me to share my faith more. I’ll have to do a full entry another day about how God is working on me in this area, but on this Good Friday I can say that I am becoming obsessed with seizing the opportunities we get every day to voice the good news.
I just finished listening to the audio version of the book- and Movement, called “I am Second,” which tells the stories of how ordinary people (though some famous) gave their lives to Christ and have experienced abundant life in Jesus by putting Him at the center of their lives. I want to see these changes happen in people around me, too!
The Gospel – the Cross – is good, good news – the BEST news. So good that we should never keep it to ourselves.
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