So, I go to pay my gas bill for the month and it seems a bit high, but I pay up. To my surprise, the balance gets even higher. Who puts the minus sign behind the number anyway? What I belatedly figured out was that the gas company dumped my security deposit from almost 3 years ago back into my balance this month. I was trying to pay a negative balance. Those of us fighting from the trenches of poverty for the past few years need a little warning before good news is sprung on us like that. Unexpected good news goes against the grain of the poor mind set the world has carved in some of us during these years of the recession-depression, or maybe it's depression from the recession.
I wonder how many people weather-beaten and raw from the years of this Great Recession have been told the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that catches them off guard? Suppose a family has lost their means of earning a living in these past few years, suffered the loss of their home, perhaps a car or two, and faced months of scraping by while friends and relatives helped as best they were able, and had no hope in Christ, as we do. Suddenly, with the years of toil and frustration weighting them down, you spring something like, "So, ya wanna have eternal life?" on them. I wouldn't be surprised to see them run screaming from the room, probably a rented room at that. Maybe we should have told them a bit more about that eternal life first?
Before a suffering sinner assumes we are torturing them with an eternity that is just more of what they have experienced here in this shadow land, we might want to tell a few words about what God has in store for us in the hereafter. Check out the words of promise at the end of the Revelation, or in Isaiah concerning God's holy mountain. We know some of those promises already. Tread the road with love and make sure the good news we speak is good news.
Here's some good news for all of us: Jesus Loves You!
Bucky
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