Good News Is All There Is

 I can’t think of anything  more important than Good News. And I often tell myself Good News is all we’ve got, and that Good News is all there is. And I’ve learned to tell myself this Good News simply:

That Jesus Christ  is Lord and Savior. 

That Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. 

And that the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit has now been offered in His Name.  

That is the Good News, as I understand it. There’s more to say--probably libraries full of the things to say-- but to say less— to not have at least said this—is to not have said it  at all. 

Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.  

And we share in His Dying and Rising by this Good News, 

And we share in Christ's own life by the forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And this means  a lot things but what I think it mostly tmeans  is that His Dying and Rising is the only thing that makes things right. 

And the heart of the life of faith is this admission: that we can’t make things right but we can share in the life of the one who has. That we share in Christ’s own life by the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit,  share in His Dying and Rising by this Good News.

Because we share in Christ's own life by this Good News, I have come to understand that this Good News is not  just as information, but the light that reveals Him, and the bread by which He gives Himself to us. So that what I often say is Good News is all we got, Good News is all there is. 

This Good News–the Light that reveals Him and the Bread by which he gives Himself to us.  What I often call the Song of His Dying and Rising 

What I often tell myself is that if we share in His Dying and Rising by this Good News, if Good News is all we got, and if Good News  is all there is,  then only Good News changes us. 

And I’ve thought a lot about the fact that if it Good News is all we got, and if Good News is all there is, and if only Good News changes us, then what it gives us is a New Heart. 

When  we hear this News and eat this Bread and see this Light, that’s what we get, what we get is this New Heart:

A Heart that trusts in Him instead of pride and lies, 

that trust in Him by His Gospel, 

A heart that trusts Him with trouble and loss, 

that trusts Him with things through His Spirit,

that entrusts itself to others in His Name, 

that entrusts itself to others for the building of His Fellowship. 

It is a heart that can do all that, or at least  can slowly begin to, somehow, if only because Good News is all there is, and only Good News changes us. That New Heart of faith, hope, and love.

And if Good News is all there is, and Good News is all we got,  and if only Good News changes us,  then It deepens the Heart it gives  us, and so begins that slow  growth in faith, hope and love over time and only by His Means of Grace: all good things happening by this Gospel, through His Spirit, and in the building of His Fellowship. 

And I think I’ve been around long enough to know it  goes something like this:

 that Good News changes we trust, 

and what  we trust gradually changes what we pay attention to, 

and what we  we pay attention to gradually changes what we even want. 

I think that's what Good News does. It changes  what we trust, pay attention to, and even want. Because Good News is all there is, and Good News is all  we got, and only Good News changes us. 

 I say the New Heart deepens over time like this: that we become more rescued, more led, more given by only over time and only by His Means of Grace. That we somehow  get that deeper trust in Christ by His Word, through His Spirit, in His Fellowship. 

Because Good News is all there is. And Good News is all we got.  And only Good News changes us. 

And I look back over the mess of years and what I see is that the Lord has used every good or bad thing, every wound or slight or setback or cataclysm, everything that happens or shouldn't have happened, to somehow drive that Good News deeper into this New Heart.

That Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, 

That Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again, 

That the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit has been offered in His Name. 

Because Good News changes what we trust, pay attention to, and even want, I also think of this New Heart as Safe Passage- 

out of pride and lies, 

through trouble and loss, 

toward meaning and rest. 

But only because Christ Himself is the way out of bad things, the way through hard things, and all the good things we’re headed toward. 

That is the only thing this New Heart is headed toward, the only thing this News Heart can be headed toward. 

Toward all the good things Christ Himself is and the small good things we offer in His Name.  Headed there by the Song of His Dying and Rising. 

Because Good News is all there is, and Good News is all we got, I say Good News  gives us a New Heart, and because this New Heart that is also Safe Passage, I often say Good News is our only shepherd.

So that if Good News is all we got and if Good News is all there is, and only Good News changes us, and if Good News is our only shepherd. Then what I think I want, what I’ve been searching for all my life, is a simple life with this Good News, a small life held together by this Good News. 

And I think I’ve found out what it is, and it’s  a slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends.

Because we share in His Dying and Rising by this Good News

And  scripture is where I get this Good News

And prayer is how I stay with this Good News

And hobbies and friends is how I work with this Good News, as I work on things, and as work with folks. 

By hobbies I mean two things at once: simple pleasures and humble craftsmanship. The small good things we offer in His Name.

By friends I mean two things as well: fellowship with folks I love, enjoy, and trust. And going out to see folks in the land of sin, death, and the devil.  Either friends with folks, being a friend to folks. 

This slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends is important to me for this reason: that, I—whether by disposition or mental illness– somehow pretty much  experience this life as fundamentally discontinuous. Full of disruption, fog, and trouble. Always at hand, always so near. And have learned that because Good News is all we got, and Good News is all  there is, that the only real continuity is this Good News, the Song of His Dying and Rising. 

So that  all that’s left is a simple life held together by this Good News, a small life held together by this Good News. To receive Good News, stay with Good News, and work with Good News. To follow the Song of His Dying and Rising. 

Because I think I’ve been around long enough to know our only continuity is this Good News. 

And I’ve been around just long enough to know that a simple life with this Good News is a  slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends. 

Because scripture is where I  get this Good News. Trusting in Him by His Gospel.

Prayer is how I stay with this Good News. Trusting Him with things through His Spirit.

Hobbies and friends are how I work with this Good News, entrusting myself other in His Name and for the building of His Fellowship.

To join the Song of His Dying and Rising

 Through a slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends.

When Good News is all we got, and Good News is all there is. When Good News is our only shepherd, and only Good News changes us. And all I think I want is a small life held together by this Good News. 

Headed toward all the good things Christ is, and the small good things we offer in His Name. Headed there by the Song of His Dying Rising

When feels like all too much, and when feels like a lot

Just remember Good News is all there is, Good News is all we got.

Because He  died we’ve all been fed

Now that He’s risen we can all be led 

To join the Song of His Dying and Rising

To walk past the body and minds uprising

To follow because we’ve been forgiven 

To be rescued led and somehow given

Joining the Song of His Dying and Rising, 

through a slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends.

And, again, in a world full of such ugly discontinuity, full of such ugly disruption, fog, and trouble the only continuity I know is this Good News, the Song of His Dying and Rising,  the continuity of being rescued, led, and given.

And I think about the Song of His Dying and Rising, 

that slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends.

the continuity of being rescued, led, given. 

I think of how His Dying and Rising now carries, in us,  its own momentum. It’s own steady sense of what’s next–because of this Good News and our New Heart, and this Safe Passage. Because of Word, Spirit, Fellowship.

How the Song of Dying and Rising now has its own sense of assured momentum, it’s own sense of inevitability, its own sense of a way forward, the way a song does. The way there always something about a song, any song,  that makes it sound like we should just keep going. The way a song carries its own slow and steady sense of what’s next. 

And that I somehow join the Song of His Dying and Rising, somehow feel the inevitability of His Dying and Rising in my own small life, that better stronger undertow, that only real continuity, through that simple life with this Good News, through that slow and steady rhythm of scripture, prayer, hobbies and friends.  Learning to follow that only continuity. The continuity of being rescued, led, and given. 

I've learned, or am learning, how to not depend on what happens. Because there is no such thing as what happens, not in a world so full of disruption, fog, and trouble.  Because our new home is not what happens, our new home is what we offer. Our new home is all the good things Christ Himself is, the small good things we offer in His Name. 

So that I’ve learned to say and mean  two things at once:

That nothings works out

And there’s always a way to serve.