THE GOOD NEWS
by Todd Proctor
Fear, power, money, pride…these are incredible tools of the enemy to try and control us. These are the tools of a worldview that says, “The fittest survive” and “kill or be killed”. I think we can no longer believe the propaganda being pushed upon us. I think we must ask ourselves, “Is there something else going on behind the scenes?” I think we can no longer be ‘asleep’ going along in life pursuing our own comforts while evil has slowly crept up around us. An evil that says there is no God. An evil whose goal is to become “like gods” through “technology”, through “science”…motivated by a pride-laden few that say, “there’s not enough room on this planet anymore.”
A sick worldview that says a few must remain and the rest must go. And for what, to preserve the earth and to engineer their bodies into subhumans that think they will live forever? Long ago Satan desired ‘to be God’ and sold mankind on the lie that they too could be ‘like God knowing all things and live forever.’ You see it is no new agenda.
It goes all the way back to the days of the ancients. And this struggle of good vs. evil has continued throughout history. Two sides / two fronts: on one front you have agendized power grabs rooted in fear resulting in the subjugation of people with massive death as the result. On the other you have selfless sacrifice rooted in hope with life and freedom as the resultant outcome. There are those who have stood against the tyranny of evil: the Martin Luther King Jr.’s, the Abraham Lincoln’s, the Harriet Tubman’s, the William Wallace’s. People that take a stand for what’s right without posturing for self preservation.
Those people that have principles and unwavering conviction. They don’t jump back and forth between sides based on how much they can selfishly accumulate by aligning with whoever or whatever will benefit them at the time. So where does this kind of conviction come from? I’ve heard it said, “Man, there’s nothing real, anything and anybody can be bought for the right price.” In fact, truth be told there is no limit to the dark depths mans heart will sink in order to try and get himself ahead. All you have to do is look as far as Polpot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Sadam, etc…the list goes on and on starting with Cain’s murder of Abel.
And truth be told it’s not a matter of us and them. We all have the same wiring that whispers softly to us saying, “You deserve better, you are better than them, take whatever you want, and use whatever means necessary to do it. Yes, we can flower it up and put a nice mask on it and try to call it something else. We can say, “Yeah well I’m basically a good person, and I would never hurt anybody.”
But the truth is at the root of our being, everyone’s being, is a selfish self centered person that wants whatever their desires dictate with only the social norms, etiquette and the law that keep most of us in check from the ugliness of who we could be. It is a problem is it not? Is it not where all the strife in this world comes from? The haves and the have nots. As Pink Floyd once put it, “Us and them…the with / without…isn’t it what the fighting’s all about.”
Or as the Bible says, “What is the source of wars and divisions among you? Are they not from your selfish desires that are at conflict within your very being?”
To which many say we need to be more like the children; let them lead the way. It’s our social conditioning that has turned us into these ugly bad adults. But I ask you this: how come I never had to teach my 2 yr. old daughter to say ‘no’ or ‘mine’? And I love my daughter! She is sweet and precious and the apple of my eye. But I have had to teach her over and over to say please daddy or thank you mommy; how to be grateful and kind and respectful. It’s very sweet yes, but it didn’t come natural. It had to be taught; nurtured. Those neural pathways trained up in the way she ought to go. The tantrums, and the ‘no’! ‘mine’! words that magically appear from her …guess what, I didn’t have to teach her that. It came natural to her. It’s like she’s hardwired that way.
And guess what? We all are. We are all hardwired to be selfish and rebellious towards each other, towards the very one who created us. We all miss the mark of being genuinely kind people with pure motives. No one can do it. And you know what the word for missing the mark is…it is an old archery term for not hitting the bullseye. The word is the sin mark; more simply known as sin. We all have this sin problem. Nobody is better or worse when it comes to sin. And that’s what the real problem is in this world. We are born into the world without the knowledge of how to truly love. Love is a selfless kind of thing. It doesn’t seek after its own interests only, but seeks after the interests of others. Even the best interests of people we disagree with and can’t stand. Even with our enemies.
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love never fails.
So how can we access a love like this if we are hardwired at birth into selfishness, pride, sin? We can try to be good people, do kind things, get along as best we can with others; but all those ‘good’ things seem to fall short too don’t they. For some reason good deed doing don’t feel natural does it? Or you can take the path of I must win, I must dominate, I must kill or be killed. Saying it’s the ‘natural order’ of things. An attitude that says, “I will get mine no matter what the cost.” Either path we take our motives still remain underneath it all as a self serving little worm.
And it’s still there isn’t it? That gnawing realization that we don’t have the capacity to offer up and live out that raw and unfiltered kind of perfect selfless love in its purest form. And try all you want to dominate, everyone loses their control in the end. If someone else doesn’t come along and outdo you, then death surely eventually will. Try all you want you will never be God. But…there is good news! In fact it is the greatest news of all history. It is the news that dismantles the evil power of the ‘us and them’ mentality.
It is the power that sets us free from ourselves. It is the power that literally “sets the captives free.” It is the power of love. God’s perfect love.
The Bible says God is love. Jesus is God’s demonstration of that power towards us. Jesus is God who descended to live amongst us in human form. To be like us. To feel what we feel and experience all the emotions of what it is to be just like those he created. Demonstrating for us what ultimate love looks like: Ultimate love is willing to die if that’s what it takes to set us free. Free from the chains of self focus, free from pride, free from sin so that we too can love with unshackled selfless abandon. So that we can have our eyes and hearts open to love one another and love Him in this same way.
When Jesus came to earth, he loved humanity so purely, so truely, so selflessly that this world killed him for it. They literally crucified him. Yet Jesus is the only one in all of history who has ever loved us all perfectly. No person, no king, no religious leader, no president or national political leader has ever loved like Jesus. And yet he did not resist his captors when they came for him, he did not put up a fight because he even loved those who took his life from him. He died willingly for us all. For everyone who has ever lived, for everyone who will ever live.
And again you ask, but why? Why would a loving perfect God allow evil and pain into the world He created? How come there are awful wrong things that happen? The truth is God created the entire world and humankind in perfect harmony to thrive in deeply meaningful connection to Him and one another and the entire created universe. It was Satan’s deception convincing us to stop trusting God & start trusting ourselves that plunged our world from perfect peace to perpetual brokenness.
I will honestly tell you I don’t know the answer to all of these big questions, I am a person just like you. Created from the dust, finite in my capacities and understanding, I will return to the dust when I die. But I can tell you this, I know the one who does know. His name is Jesus and he is God. He is called the King of Kings. His mind is so far beyond mine I cannot understand the why of how he is writing a thing called His story. But I do know that He said “See, I am making all things new! … these words are faithful and true.” And that He made a promise to return and bring a new heaven and new earth where He reigns as the Prince of Peace forever. God has promised that “He will wipe every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
And I know that even though I don’t understand so many of the why questions of this life; my King has shown me the better answer to the greater question of ‘how?’. How am I to live this life? I hope you will ask that question. I hope you will ask yourself that, because more than anything I want you to know my King Jesus. Jesus said 2,000 years ago, “Those who desire to save their life will surely lose it, yet those who willingly lay down their life for my sake will surely find it.”
There came a point in my life when at age 28, having lived a life pursuing everything I ever thought would make me happy; I realized I had done everything I ever wanted out of this life, and it had not satisfied the deepest longings of my heart. It had left me empty and wanting, desperate and depressed. I called out to God in that desperate hour and said to Him, “If you are real show me, speak to me, lead me to yourself and show me how to do this thing called life, or it’s just not worth it for me to keep on going.”
My friend, God heard my cry in that hour, and from that point on he led me to hear the Truth about Jesus and all these same things I’m sharing with you now. It says in the Bible, “If you cry out for me, if you seek for me with all your heart you surely will find me.” Jesus also said, “I have come so that you may have life and life in all its fullness.”
In John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world that He appeared to us in human flesh as Jesus Christ, and that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” It says in Gods Word, “Those that believe in me though they die, yet shall they live.” When this world, (me and you) crucified Jesus on the cross He bore all of our sin past, present and future upon Himself. He did it to set us free from that sin so we could live in hope. He conquered fear and sadness. He conquered all that is not right in this world. He didn’t change the broken down-ness of the world, but He destroyed the power of sin over us. But He didn’t just die for us to make us free from sin, He conquered death by rising from the grave after three days just as He had prophesied.
And this is where the greatest power of all is demonstrated by God towards us his creatures. Love so powerful, love so amazing that it breaks the effects of death upon us. You see we were created to live forever. Built deep inside of us all is the knowledge of this. We feel it every time someone close to us dies. We know there’s something very wrong with death. That is the signal inside of us that we were created for life. Eternal life. And that is what Jesus did on the cross for us. He purchased eternal life for us by conquering death and sin on the cross. It is Jesus’s blood that saves us.
All throughout history there have been gross practices of blood sacrifice performed by many cultures. They continue today by people so afraid of death and so desperate for power that they perform horrible atrocities and cultures of death upon the innocent, in an attempt to live forever. Jesus died for these people too. These kind of people seem scary and different from us. But they are no different. Before knowing who God is, how things in this world are, and what Jesus came to do… we are all pretty much running scared, trying to prolong death and desperately milking everything we can out of life. Here today gone tomorrow.
But there is a power greater than anything the world can muster. It’s more powerful than the high frequency signals of a 5g network. It’s more powerful than weaponized mind control. It’s more powerful than viruses, bioweapons, nuclear energy, bombs or guns. It’s the power of Gods love living and dwelling inside of us. God’s people carry within them a power that makes all other powers secondary powers. So do not fear. What can man do to those of us who know and love God? Nothing. For even if we die, yet will we rise again. This is the power of Jesus. This is the power of His Word to those who believe it, the impossible is possible. God is not afraid. Neither must we be.
So what can we do? It’s simple…and it’s free… it’s the good news…it’s the best news for mankind of all of history:
Believe that Jesus is God. That He came to set you free from the effects of sin, and to give you eternal life. And say to Him, God I’ve missed the mark, I’m a slave to sin. I believe that you are good, that you love me with a perfect love and that you have a wonderful plan for my life. That you paid the price once and for all to set me free from myself and my sin to live for you. Set me free, take all of me. All of who I am and make me into the kind of person you want me to be. I’m sorry God. Thank you Jesus. I love you Jesus. I’m yours now and forever.
Welcome to the family. Get yourself a Bible and plug in with God’s people. It will be the best decision you’ll ever make.