Unexpected Good News!

Do you remember the first time someone told you about Jesus?  Do you remember the first time that you dared to imagine that God sees you just as you are and has nothing but love for you?  Did you have a hard time w/ it?  Was it hard to believe that God loved you, knowing who you are, what your like, the things you've done, the things you've thought??  Yeah, me too.

But that was a long time ago and I guess I have forgotten how unexpected and just plain shocking the Good News of God in Jesus really is.  I guess I have grown accustomed to thinking of myself as someone who's on the inside, who spends what is really an inordinate amount of time w/ people "like me".  Some how I have become all to comfortable and unsurprised by God's love and even more the people who are the object of that love!

 

But I have been reminded over the last week how out of place and strange God's love is compared w/ everything else that I've come to know and expect.  I've been brought to tears by simply hearing the good news once again that "Jesus came to seek and save the lost!"  That Jesus "received sinners" and "ate and drank w/ them."  That from beginning to end this is God's heart and work in the world.  And it is only because of God's love for sinners that this story is good news for me. 

The last few days I have been listening to Bishop Will Willimon's podcast, four of them in particular, on a book he released last year called, Who will be Saved?

If the Good News has not been too unexpected to you lately, if God's work and where it's popping up have not caused you to scratch your head, if the people who are being brought into God's kingdom have not been kind of disturbing to you than I would highly recommend you take a listen or pick up the book.