God’s Good News is that, through his mercy, grace, and love, He has given us the gift of salvation. We all need salvation because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). But the sacrifice made by His Son, Jesus, paid the price for our sins. This was God’s gift to us and it requires nothing of us but to confess Jesus as Lord and believe with all our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 10:9).
The gift of salvation, and the eternal life it brings, is for all of us. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we do for a living, where we live, or even how much money we have. If we call on the name of Jesus, if we truly believe in Him, we will be saved (Romans 10:13). Jesus told us that, if we believe in Him, we are not condemned. But, He also said that those who don’t believe are already condemned (John 3:18). You may wonder, “What about a person who has never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ? How can they avoid condemnation and receive the gift of salvation?”
A person who has not heard the Good News can’t possibly believe in Jesus or confess Him as Lord. How can anyone believe in or confess as Lord a person that they don’t even know about? But, God has provided a solution to this problem and that solution is you and me. Those of us who have heard the Good News and have believed are charged with spreading that news to others (Mark 16:15). God’s desire is that all people receive the gift of salvation and we are to be His ambassadors to the rest of the world.
Think about it this way. If you knew someone, perhaps a friend or a relative, who was suffering from a terminal illness and you also knew where that person could find a cure for that illness, what would you do? Would you stay quiet? Would you keep the information to yourself and let the illness claim that person’s life? Or, would you give that person the good news about the cure, so that he or she would be healed and live? My guess is that most, if not all of us, would go with the second option. Well, the same holds true with the Good News of salvation. If we know a person has not heard it, we should be telling them about it.
Spreading the Good News is not always easy. It will not be accepted by everyone who hears it. But, our responsibility is not to make others accept the Good News. Our responsibility is just to make sure that others hear it. We are charged with delivering the message. God will take care of the rest. So, as Frank Sinatra sang in the song, New York, New York, “Start spreading the news!”
A Worshiper's Journal 