“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23
There never seems to be a shortage of bad news. Wars and rumors of wars populate daily newswires. The fear of terrorism tends to raise its ugly head when least expected. Disease, divorce, debt and depression attack every person on the planet in one degree or another. Our world defaults to bad news, but Christ’s Kingdom is filled with good news.
There is an unseen Kingdom where Jesus Christ is King and we are His grateful subjects. His Kingdom is full of grace and truth having conquered sin, death and Satan on the cross. In Christ’s Kingdom the light of His love outshines dark deeds. Grace replaces guilt, love overcomes lust, acceptance rejects rejection and faith jettisons fear.
Christ’s gospel is the Kingdom of Heaven’s charter. When you emigrated from the lost shores of sin and landed in Christ’s country of grace you received a new citizenship. In Christ you are free and forgiven and you enjoy the benefits of being a Christian.
“Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12-13). The cross of Christ is good news.
Christ was unashamed to share the good news of His Kingdom, and neither should we. He went to the cities, synagogues and the countryside sharing the gospel of the Kingdom. You and I have the same privilege and responsibility to not sit silently with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Good news, delivered in love, speaks louder and more forcefully than blustering bad news. Be a bearer of good news and see God give help and hope to the hurting. His gospel, delivered by faith, goes places we can never access in our own strength.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17).
Do I fully understand the benefits of being a citizen of Christ’s Kingdom? And do I share this good news with those bound up in the kingdom of this world?
Related Readings: 2 Kings 19:15-19; Mark 10:14-15; Colossians 1:12-13; Hebrews 12:28
Source: Wisdom Hunters by Boyd Bailey
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