First The Bad News, Then The Good News

First The Bad News, Then The Good NewsReader: Mairi MacPhersonDate: 10th May 2022Passage: Romans 3:23-24-------------------Fake news! It would be nice to believe that we are not sinners and that God is pleased with us and would never turn us away from his heaven. Now that would be fake news! The truth is that we are sinners — every one of us an while we are still sinners God is not pleased with us and not one of us will find a place in God's heaven. We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard. That is not false news, it is bad news.But it is not the end of the story — there is good news, indeed amazingly good news. Jesus Christ came into our world to save sinners by taking on himself all our sin with its guilt and shame and he died in our place on the cross. Why? He paid the penalty for our sins. Why did he do this? It is God's pure gift of love. "He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ" Romans 3:23-24 (The Message).That is the Good News; it is the Gospel, "The way that God sets things right and makes it possible for us to live in his rightness. Romans 3:26 (The Message)Because it is God's gift — we call this' grace' - we don't have to earn it. We have to accept it thank him and live in the light of it day by day.PrayerDear Lord, I thank you for the good news of salvation for a sinner like me. Amen.