Monday, December 26, 2016
528 - Good News is Real News
Spirituality
Column No. 528
December 27, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The angels of God deal only in divine truth while the minions of Satan deal only in unholy falsehoods.
Be sure that those awestruck, reverent, simple shepherds on that hill near Bethlehem two thousand years ago knew the truth when they heard it just as surely as, ever since, so many people haven’t, don’t and won’t.
Recognize the truth, I mean. The good tidings. The Good News.
God’s truth is simple and direct and has but one purpose: to glorify God. Satan’s lies are complex and clandestine, also possessing but one goal: stealing God’s glory. Across the great spectrum between these extremes and absolutes lay the temptations, aspirations, frustrations, hopes, fears, wiles, faith, deceits, desperation, pride, sins and love of mankind. It is so very, very difficult to peel back all those layers of our own humanity and find the core truth; the real, true good news of all existence, which is this:
Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord; the incarnate deity sent into the human world by a loving God to restore humanity’s lost divine image and heavenly relationship in the Kingdom of the Creator God Almighty, for His glory, forever. Amen.
God’s good news comes with a one-question final exam: “Do you believe?”
It is not a question asking for an opinion, because in the face of the supreme truth our opinions are just like our lives: fallen, lost, hopeless and as the poet put it, “nasty, brutish and short.” It is not our opinion or works or even our faith that saves us; it is the truth of Jesus that saves us. After all, we can have faith in the wrong things and our opinions generally reveal our pride and cosmic smallness. We see an exception to this in Luke 2:15, when the shepherds in faith venture the opinion that they should go to Bethlehem and “see this thing which has come to pass.”
The shepherds trusted the truth without knowing what “this thing” actually was.
As we shake the snowflakes off of this year’s Christmas celebration, it rings loudly in my ears how much I heard publicly about “faith” and “belief” with no mention of Jesus. Due to recent celebrity conversation, whether or not we have “hope” – again, no Jesus – is media fodder. And the over-riding media theme of the moment is “fake news” amid the dearth of coverage of the Christmas story’s real and truly Good News.
That’s not to categorically condemn modern day secular journalists, politicians, academicians and other culture warriors intent on manufacturing and distributing “truth” – opinions bent to their own un-angelic social, economic and educational agendas. They are sinners like the rest of us whom Jesus came to save like the rest of us.
Satan always puts human opinion squarely in the way of God’s Good News.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) read a Christmas Eve day newspaper editorial about “the magic of Christmas” that, in 800 words, never once mentioned Jesus. Sigh.
December 27, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Good News is Real News
By Bob
Walters
“And the angel said unto them (shepherds), ‘Fear
not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people.’” – Luke 2:10 KJV
The angels of God deal only in divine truth while the minions of Satan deal only in unholy falsehoods.
Be sure that those awestruck, reverent, simple shepherds on that hill near Bethlehem two thousand years ago knew the truth when they heard it just as surely as, ever since, so many people haven’t, don’t and won’t.
Recognize the truth, I mean. The good tidings. The Good News.
God’s truth is simple and direct and has but one purpose: to glorify God. Satan’s lies are complex and clandestine, also possessing but one goal: stealing God’s glory. Across the great spectrum between these extremes and absolutes lay the temptations, aspirations, frustrations, hopes, fears, wiles, faith, deceits, desperation, pride, sins and love of mankind. It is so very, very difficult to peel back all those layers of our own humanity and find the core truth; the real, true good news of all existence, which is this:
Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord; the incarnate deity sent into the human world by a loving God to restore humanity’s lost divine image and heavenly relationship in the Kingdom of the Creator God Almighty, for His glory, forever. Amen.
God’s good news comes with a one-question final exam: “Do you believe?”
It is not a question asking for an opinion, because in the face of the supreme truth our opinions are just like our lives: fallen, lost, hopeless and as the poet put it, “nasty, brutish and short.” It is not our opinion or works or even our faith that saves us; it is the truth of Jesus that saves us. After all, we can have faith in the wrong things and our opinions generally reveal our pride and cosmic smallness. We see an exception to this in Luke 2:15, when the shepherds in faith venture the opinion that they should go to Bethlehem and “see this thing which has come to pass.”
The shepherds trusted the truth without knowing what “this thing” actually was.
As we shake the snowflakes off of this year’s Christmas celebration, it rings loudly in my ears how much I heard publicly about “faith” and “belief” with no mention of Jesus. Due to recent celebrity conversation, whether or not we have “hope” – again, no Jesus – is media fodder. And the over-riding media theme of the moment is “fake news” amid the dearth of coverage of the Christmas story’s real and truly Good News.
That’s not to categorically condemn modern day secular journalists, politicians, academicians and other culture warriors intent on manufacturing and distributing “truth” – opinions bent to their own un-angelic social, economic and educational agendas. They are sinners like the rest of us whom Jesus came to save like the rest of us.
Satan always puts human opinion squarely in the way of God’s Good News.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) read a Christmas Eve day newspaper editorial about “the magic of Christmas” that, in 800 words, never once mentioned Jesus. Sigh.
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