In the very last issue of the Bulletin I challenged my readers to answer the question: What do you understand as the Good News that we say God revealed to us? Each of us, if our religion is to be meaningful, must decide what the Good News is all about. The early Christians were decidedly excited about the Good News – so very excited about it that they were even willing to die rather than to discount it or deny it. Something about the Good News changed them and they courageously professed it openly, even though it meant that they would be persecuted and killed. They witnessed to their belief in the man Jesus in spite of the fact that enemies to their WAY OF LIVING did everything to stamp them out.

We must remember that the early Christians were not surrounded by great numbers of people who, after centuries of thoughtful consideration, believed that this Jesus was and is also God Himself incarnate. There was something about what Jesus taught about how to live that so emboldened them that they were willing to die rather than deny their belief in Jesus.

What was there about this Good News that so gave them this courage and do we feel the same thing about the Good News as they did?

The call to holiness is a call to discover the Good News that God has revealed to us and to allow that Good News to transform, change and transfigure our lives. We see from history that the Good News has the power to change human lives. It happened! Thousands upon thousands of people were changed by it.

The critical question that must be answered today is: Has the Good News lost it’s ability to change human lives or have humans lost their ability to discover the intrinsic value and power of the Good News? I suspect that the Good News is as powerful today as when it was first revealed to humankind. It is modern people who are lacking in their ability to become excited by the Good News and what it reveals. Think about this!