This week I have been blogging on here about preaching the gospel, the Good News.  Thursday night I had the opportunity to preach to a gathering of Christian students in Birmingham about what really matters to our God.  It would be easy to make that kind of message into a guilt trip, a pressure message.  Sort of like preaching about the good news, but dressing it up in the garb of bad news.  But I tried to show how really it is all about Christ, and Christ is so careful with fragile ones like us.

I tried to show that while we have a mission to participate in here on earth, we are invited into that by a very sensitive Christ who doesn’t snap a bruised reed, or snuff out a smoldering wick.  We all have reasons to hold back from joining in Christ’s mission to reach this world – financial reasons, guilt reasons, fear reasons.  But the issue really isn’t those obstacles, the issue is Christ.  And my aim, in preaching the passage I preached, was to bring the listeners face to face with the Christ who loves them and gave Himself for them.

So here’s a quick thought to end the week – if you are preaching tomorrow, and the core of what you are preaching is the gospel, will the message feel like good news?  That is, will your presentation of Christ and the written Word smell of the grace of God?  Or will your manner, your applications, your tone, your demeanour, your presentation somehow dress it up as something other than Christlike?  Let’s preach good news.