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No News Is Good News… Right?

Have you ever sat in front of your TV after a long day, flipped on the news, and then wondered why you put yourself through this nightly routine?  Violence.  Murder.  Fatal accidents.  Alcohol.  Drugs.  Bombings.  Abuse.  Cruelty.  Just watch the news, and it’s clear “that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).

Unfortunately, things have not improved since the dawn of time.  The headline in the Garden of Eden could have read “Humans Eat Forbidden Fruit, Garden Closed Indefinitely.” Most of the Old Testament could have fallen under the headline, “Israel Under Threat of Attack,” a caption which would stand to this day.  The most important events in history could have been titled “‘King of the Jews’ Crucified,” with a sub-heading, “Strange Weather Phenomena Probably Not a Coincidence.” And as for that week’s Sunday paper, just imagine this lead story: “Body of Jesus Missing, Followers Being Questioned.”

So, no news is good news, right?  Well, it’s true that good news is not as readily broadcast as the bad.  But, that last headline about the first Easter Sunday is of course the ultimate Good News.

As believers, it is our duty—and our privilege—to share the Good News of the Gospel with those around us.  This is not always an easy task, especially when doing what is right is so uncommon.  But we as followers of Christ have an eternal perspective, because “he who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (John 12:25). 

A lot of people are confused by that verse.  They think that, “I don’t hate my life.  I must be living wrong by God’s standards.”  But this verse does not mean that God intends for you to be miserable all of your days.  It does not mean that God wants you to detest the very life that He breathed into you.  No!  It simply means that “if you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you” (John 15:19).

So the next time you watch the nightly news, and you are distressed by what you see, remember that your despair is linked to the fact that you just don’t fit in here.  And that is very good news indeed