Good News: Week 2 | Day 1
The first “Mark of Love” invites us to “proclaim the good news of the kingdom.” As Br. David Vryhof explains in this introduction to the second week of the series, when we receive good news, we want to share it. How has the good news of God touched your life?
Transcript: Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring the First Mark of Love, or the First Mark of Mission, and that is “to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God.” The gospels tell us when Jesus came and began his ministry, he proclaimed the Kingdom of God, and he called people to repent and to believe. What is this Good News of God?
Jesus at one point entered the synagogue of his hometown in Nazareth and read from the book of the prophet Isaiah. He quoted these words from Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” This is Jesus’ “mission statement,” as it were – his understanding of his particular call, his vocation, his purpose for being in the world that was related to the purposes of God. This is his vocation, to proclaim Good News to the poor, release from captivity, sight for the blind. Jesus’ message is a message of healing and of hope, of love and of liberty, of freedom and the restoration of God’s intent for us.
Jesus shares this Good News with us. When we receive good news, we want to pass it on to others. And so this week we will be exploring what this Good News is for each one of us. How has the Good News of the Gospel touched your life? What effect has Jesus and God’s life within you made on the way that you live? And how can you share this Good News with others, both by your words and by your actions?
So we invite you to join us this week in praying about and thinking about the Good News of God in Christ. The Good News of God’s coming reign on the earth, a reign for which we pray, “Thy Kingdom come and thy will be done.”
– Br. David Vryhof
Week 2 Activity: Listening HandWho has been a channel of God’s grace for you? In conversation or over email this week, reach out to five people to find out how they came to know God’s love. How does the Good News shape the way they live? Reflect on how you are inspired by their witness and examples.
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I found God’s love several years ago listening to two gardener friends in our garden. They referred me to Romans 8 and the Holy Spirit. Since then God’s love has been within me when I realized I’m a vessel for the Holy Spirit!
This is a difficult one for me. I do not start conversations about the good news of God, I join in. I try to demonstrate
the Good News by caring for anyone who needs help, in any form, companionship with the elderly, giving rides, assisting with thing people need help with. I feel the life God gives me everyday is to be shared. and not kept to myself. I hope this is spreading the Good News.
I feel shy about asking people how they have come to know God’s love in their lives. Such would be a good conversation. People need to feel safe to reveal this to another as it is very intimate. I am gooing to think aboout how I can meet this challenge.
I am looking forward to this week of exploration. Only recently have I started to learn from Jesus’ parables by understanding their historical context and the social status at that time of the characters in them; that I have to carefully consider from the Bible the dynamics of the social setting, the conversation, the place, the often delicate and danger fraught situation in which Jesus had to teach by parable. For example, thanks to our new Minister, Rev. Caroline, I now have a far deeper understanding of the telling and message of the parable of the Good Samaritan …..I had never before considered the situation and the message of the person, likely a Jew, who had been set upon by the robbers.
Hmmmmmmm … I usually get to read the thoughts and feelings of other participants here, all the way to the end of the posts (generally several of them). I like to “listen” and reflect upon the thoughts, ideas, and heartfelt feelings which are expressed, because the diverse mix of diverse feelings inspires me to reflect upon my own thoughts and feelings. But I find that today, nobody else has yet replied. Perhaps because this is not a simple question to answer. So perhaps my own rant can seed somebody else, instead.
I have long understood that God lives within us all, and I have always considered myself to be a “spiritual” being, rather than a “religious” person. Churches generally seemed to offer me very little that I felt really mattered. I always felt that I could get more out of life by immersing myself in the beauty of nature, and actually rejoicing in the beauty of living things than actually studying the teachings of Jesus.
That all changed when I met my wife. God reached out to me through her, and gently pulled me into her, and therefore, into God’s own Grace and Love. I am now blessed to be a member of a congregation whose pastor preaches the words of Jesus, rather than the rules and regulations of “Christianity”. And because of this, our congregation contains many very kind, loving people. Love truly is contagious, especially when you are a part of a fellowship of love.
Most of all, my biggest blessing is my wife. She is the most Godly person I have ever met, and her love of life, of the people around her, and especially of me, has truly helped me get to know that love of Jesus, directly through her, and I find that I give my greatest love and praise to God through my love and devotion to her.
But it can’t stop there. I now try to do my best to remain cognizant of God’s love every day, as I simply go about my day, trying to reflect God’s love in my relationships with the people I know and meet, and in the deeds that I do and the things I say (or won’t say). I still have a long way to go, but it is very satisfying for me to see how far I’ve come. You see, sharing God’s love with others also strengthens God’s love within you.