The Bad News of the Cross

It is our duty and responsibility to tell everyone the Good News of the Cross: God is powerful, God knows everything, and God loves us. His good plans for us cannot be stopped.

At first glance, this seems irresistible. Who would not want such a person to be their friend?

However, we also must tell people the Bad News of the Cross: for us to receive the good things God has planned for us, we need to submit to Him and obey him.

God’s ways are different from ours. If the two were somehow compatible, then there would have been no need for the Bible because everything we did would be acceptable to God. Jesus’s death would be unnecessary because there would be no sin to die for.

We must choose: God’s way or our way. If we believe that God’s plans are better than ours, it only makes sense to do what He says and give up our patently inferior ideas.

Why is this difficult for us to follow?

· It means that we must admit that our strength is insufficient and that we need God’s power in our lives.

· It means that we must admit that we don’t know all the factors in our situation and so we cannot know the best thing to do at any given time.

· It means that we must admit that our own ideas of what is good for us must make way for God’s plan for us.

· It means that we must come to God with no idea that we have any special merit before him or that He owes us anything.

This offends our pride and our sense that we need to be in control.

Some people will say, “God loves us, so we don’t have to follow laws and teachings.”

Obedience is not optional, it is only what Jesus said: ““Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?“ (Luke 6:46 ESV) Jesus is saying that if you do things your own way, then He is not your Lord.

This is the Bad News: when we meet Jesus, we cannot continue living the lives that we have lived before. We need to humbly come to God and throw all our best plans and ways of doing things as if they were rubbish. We then need to seriously listen to God so that we can do things His way and according to His leading.

Some people take Jesus as another god that they can call on when they have need and then ignore when their problems are over. These are not disciples of Christ. Jesus will say of them, “I never knew you.” What a tragedy!

When we preach Christ, we must be careful to share the whole gospel, both the “Good News” and the “Bad News.”. We must teach unconditional love and obedience to the One Who Loves Us or we won’t have done our duty.

About the Author: Bert completed CPx in Cape Town in 2015 in Cape Town. Since then he and his wife have been working among the unreached peoples of the southern Himalayas. His joy is his three daughters and three grandchildren who all love Jesus.

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