Better News? Really?

In the middle of a world that is filled with bad news, we possess the best news of all, and if you have experienced the new birth, having been born again through Jesus, you can have a hopeful and faith-filled outlook, because God is with you and in you!   The good news is that even though we are sinners and were separated from God by sin, we can be set from from sin's power through salvation in Christ.   The hope for the world is that Jesus loves everyone and died for all.

2nd Corinthians 5 offers some insight:
14For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;15and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.16Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all          things have become new.





It's the best news of all - you can have a new life!  It doesn't come from human ingenuity or our own effort, but through the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ.  He died for everyone - that means you and me - and offers us the ability to walk in victory over sin and to experience His love and His presence each and every day.  It is truly good news, and in Him we can have hope!

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We have been invited to experience good news, that Jesus came into the world to die for our sins, to offer us salvation from our sins, and to allow us to be partakers of His nature.  He has effectively dealt with the sin problem that keeps us bound and separated from God.  1st John 2 says:
1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

The ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship is a powerful tool that God is using to bring children to Jesus Christ.  Through their Good News Clubs in schools across the nation, the 5-Day Club programs during the summer, and a host of quality resources, CEF is bringing truth to children.  In 2013, CEF reached some 15.6 million children with the gospel in almost 190 countries, according to its website.

So, what news could be better than what is being shared in these Good News Clubs and other CEF ministries?   Well, in Churchville, NY, as ChristianNews.net reports, in response to the CEF Good News Club held after school at an elementary school there, professing atheists from the “Better News Club” have launched a similar program to counter the gospel offering.

The Better News Club is now offering the program Young Skeptics to elementary school students. The website for the group states, "The organization was created first as an alternative to the Good News Club, a Christian evangelical group who enters public schools to proselytize to children and, according to their own materials, declares them all sinners in need of salvation."

The Better News Club people say that they see the Good News Club as “a form of psychological abuse, akin to telling small children they’re flawed or evil, and must subscribe to a dogma in order to avoid eternal punishment.” According to the permission slip for the Young Skeptics, the program serves as “an educational club dedicated to helping our kids find answers themselves, through critical thinking and problem solving.”

As previously reported by ChristianNews.net, a summer camp hosted by Child Evangelism Fellowship in Portland, Oregon likewise came under fire last summer for teaching children that each person is a sinner in need of the Savior. Those who opposed the group asserted that CEF does not present “Jesus loves you” mainstream Christianity, but is rather “hardcore evangelical fundamental.”

CEF Vice President of Ministries Moises Esteves responded to the Portland situation, telling local television station KOIN, "Listen, the message of the gospel, the teaching of the core Christian tenets of the Christian faith that have been taught for 2,000 years in the Bible is what we’re teaching...There’s nothing new here.”  The ChristianNews.net article states that CEF says that it is not teaching anything outside of the basic and fundamental truths of the gospel—and that mankind must understand the bad news to know why the good news is so good.

The world we live in today, in a sense, is one in which significant numbers of people do not accept truth - and looking back through the ages, we recognize that there has been, and will continue to be, hostility toward the gospel message.  We have to be prepared for that, and also recognize that the Holy Spirit is at work, dealing with the hearts of people to cause them to be more receptive to the gospel.  God will use us to share the very, very good news - the best news of all.    

It is true, we are sinners!   All of us - one of the aforementioned articles says that Protect Portland Children, which seeks to speak out against CEF’s message and influence parents not to allow their children to attend its events, has a profile photograph of a child holding a sign that reads “I am not a sinner.”  That's Biblically incorrect!!  Talk about dangerous to children!  The awareness of our own sinfulness is a catalyst for our accepting Jesus as Savior and experiencing redemption and true freedom in Him.

So, if you're going to claim to have "Better News," then you need to be prepared to back that claim up.  The Good News Club, who has the best news of all, actually has answers for the challenges we face in life.  And, while, yes, just as Jesus taught, we are all sinners - thankfully, He offers a way out of that state of separation from God in our sin, through the new birth!   What does the "Better News" crowd offer?

Where is the hope in the atheist or "skeptic" message?   Seems to me that children would be left with a sense of hopelessness - and the lack of the true love that Jesus offers. 

I guess that the "Better News" somehow says that being free from submission to God is a good thing, but only through a relationship with Christ, can you experience true freedom, the ability to not be bound by the weight of sin, the ability to live a life of love and joy.  A life not dependent on human fallibility, but on God's ability!

I think it's important to a believer to recognize the superiority of the Christian message, without having an attitude of superiority in sharing it.  We do possess the best news of all, and we are called to live it and share it in a way that draws people to Christ.  The best news is that we are sinful, and God has provided us a Savior to redeem our lives, to give us a new start, to actually inhabit our hearts and lead us daily.  We can be recipients of the greatest love of all, the love that motivated Jesus to die for you and me!