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Day

4

Have I Got Good News for You!

Lent 2023

Read Romans 1:18–32

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

God’s invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

At St. Joseph, Mo., stands a monument honoring 400 men and boys who rode for the Pony Express. The route established in 1860 began at St. Joseph and extended to San Francisco. But this amazing system soon gave way to the telegraph, speeding up communication.

The spread of Christianity is another, far more significant chapter in communication. Jesus initiated it: As you go, proclaim the Gospel to the whole world. After Pentecost, the disciples went quickly into all of the then-known world as messengers of the resurrected Christ. They traveled on foot or by ship, always under this urgency: “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard…the love of Christ constrains us.”

The Pony Express riders carried dispatches concerning important news, including the good word of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency and bad news of the approach of the Civil War. What news did the apostles have to carry? Bad news pertaining to the wages of sin and death; good news that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

This will always be good news. And each one of us can be a messenger to tell the good news with love in word and deed.

Prayer

Dear God, help me be a messenger of the good news of Jesus and his love. Amen.

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