From St Luke’s House July 2017

As I write this, we are expecting the imminent arrival, God willing, of our second grandchild. We’ll be praying for a safe delivery, and hoping to ‘hot-foot’ it down to London when we get the good news that the baby has been born.  My grandparents died before I was born – I never had the chance to know them, and so I thank God so much that I am able to know my grandchildren and hopefully be a part of their lives.

Have you ever been waiting in anticipation of some good news? With all that is currently taking place in the world we are in need of good news, whether that’s in our families if we have one, in our country or from further afield.

As we were clearing out the Church office the other week, I came across an old edition of the Bible which said ‘Good News for Modern Man’ on the cover. It was one of the first editions of the ‘Good News’ translation of the Bible when that came out in 1966 giving an easy to read translation for ordinary people to read for themselves – if you’re old enough you might remember them. We believe that the Bible really is good news for humankind (to use a more modern politically correct phrase!) and these small easy to read editions helped people to hear that good news for themselves. It is good news that the Father sent Jesus into our world so that we could know God again. It’s good news that Jesus took on himself the punishment for all our wrongdoings, so that we can be free of their consequences. It’s good news that Jesus overcame death and made it possible for us to have eternal life too. It’s good news too that he sends his Holy Spirit to guide us and help us to live life God’s way. It’s good news that we can call God Father and that he loves and accepts each one of us, not because we deserve it, but because he just does. 

Too often we take the good news of the Bible too much for granted, and we forget how fortunate we are that in all of these most important things Jesus has done all that is needed for us, even if we didn’t deserve it. We tend to let the little things get us down and lose sight of the big picture from God’s perspective. God really is on our side – he really does care for each and every one of us, and nothing can stop that. It really is good news!