Good News Indeed!

Do you ever feel like Christianity is too complicated? Everybody seems to have a different take on it. What are the most important elements in being an effective follower of Jesus Christ?

I like to learn from other people. If someone has learned something in their daily walk with Christ that has been effective, I want to know about it.

So often, I try to reduce my spiritual walk down to a set of tasks, a sort of list I can check off. That’s my nature, being naturally task-oriented. What I often forget, however, is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be reduced to a list of tasks. That was the mistake the well-intentioned Pharisees made during the time Jesus walked the earth. At its core, the good news about Jesus Christ is deeply relational. Yes, it ultimately translates into action, but to act without due emphasis on relationship is to move spiritually half-cocked.

We love superlatives. What is the best, the greatest, the biggest, the most? At one point in Jesus’ ministry, a scribe asked THE superlative question. We find it in Mark 12:28-31: And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he (Jesus) answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus did not hesitate to answer the superlative question. Love for God through faith in Christ and the resultant love for people that God evokes in our lives through Christ encase the entirety of the law and the Gospel. Although we often miss it, the Gospel is about love – God’s toward us first in Christ, then ours toward him, and finally ours toward other people.

Next time we feel drawn to mechanize our walk, may we remember the blessed truth – it’s all about relationship. We can rest in the reality that we are able to love God and love others because God first loved us. This is indeed good news.

In Christ,

Chris Heinss