\u201cBut the angel said to them, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people.\u201d\u00a0 Luke 2:10 CSB
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I recently started Bible Study Fellowship<\/a> (BSF). BSF is an international organization, in over 70 countries, that has 1000\u2019s and 1000\u2019s meeting weekly, studying the Bible chapter by chapter. The study is completely free, open to anyone. My first week I learned of its founder, Audrey Wetherel Johnson, a missionary to China. She was English. She spent three years in a Chinese internment camp. Several years later she was in San Bernardino, CA. She spoke to a group of women at a local church. Afterwards, five of those women came to her, asking her to teach them the Bible. In that moment, unbeknownst to those women, a movement had just started. Currently, over 350,000 people around the world are studying \u201cActs and Letters of the Apostles.\u201d Interestingly enough, when you watch the short 7 minute video<\/a> of Audrey\u2019s life, she struggled with why God called her out of the mission field to teach 5 women the Bible. She had no idea what was about to unfold in her life. She felt like she should be doing more than teaching a Bible study, but God had her exactly where he wanted her. He knew exactly what He was doing. He was proclaiming the good news. The good news of Jesus is something we should never be afraid to share. But in reality we are, for good reason. One bad apple can ruin a reputation for an entire group. For instance, recently my husband ran a tennis tournament. During one of the matches, there was a player who exhibited poor sportsmanship. One of the worst moments was when he yelled at a player on the next court who was having entire body cramps. The Rescue Squad was working on him, apparently too loudly. The guy yelled for them to \u201cQuiet down, he was trying to play!\u201d My husband had to tell him, as he was pouring water on this injured player, trying to help cool him down, to be quiet and stop playing. This gentleman\u2019s t-shirt said, \u201cUnited in Christ.\u201d Jesus healed the sick, He didn\u2019t yell at them. But, for those who witnessed this guy on this particular day, Jesus did yell at the sick. Anyone who didn\u2019t know Jesus, was just introduced to him by this guy\u2019s actions. People remember what people do, more than what they say. No less than 3 people commented to my husband about his actions and the t-shirt the guy was wearing after the match. This is not the good news our verse today is talking about. The good news we are to share, and we can do so easily, is the good news Audrey shared. A God who loves us so much He sent His Son to die so we could have a relationship with Him (John 3:16 NIV). A God who told us our greatest commandment is to love God and Others (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). A God who will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5 NIV). And God loves the bad apples, just as much as the good ones. In reality we\u2019re all bad apples, sinners in need of God\u2019s grace. And He gives grace freely, that is the good news we are to share. His everlasting love and grace, without fear, let it be proclaimed. \u201cBut the angel said to them, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people.\u201d\u00a0 Luke 2:10 CSB I recently started Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). BSF is an international organization, in over 70 countries, that has 1000\u2019s and 1000\u2019s meeting weekly, studying the Bible… Continue reading REMEMBER THE GOOD NEWS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1152,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/1152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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