found me when I didn’t deserve to be found. During
those warm summer nights in Detroit, it hit me for
the first time: successfully knowing God was not
about following advice, even if it was good moral
advice designed to help you ‘do things right’.
Knowing God is about responding to something called the Good News. The difference is
immense and life-changing. Simply put, advice is
instruction about what to do. News informs you of
what has already been done.
“Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it. News
is a report about something that has happened which
you can’t do anything about because it has been done
for you… all you can do is to respond to it.”
families. Here’s the transformation of the consciousness and here are the mandatory laws, rules and the
regulations. Marksmen over here and horsemen over
there. We must save ourselves!’” That’s the enormous
difference between advice and news.
Every other world religion or faith system
sends us advice through advisers telling us how they
think God wants us to perform to earn our way to
salvation and freedom: do this, do that, flip it like
this, cook it just so, and turn it at exactly the right
time. Then you will save yourself.
But the Gospel of Grace, God’s Good News,
sends us a message that our salvation and freedom
has already been won for us through the person of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for you and me on Calvary. This Good News doesn’t come from a messenger,
but from God himself! The King is speaking directly
to us.
The Christian Church does not simply proclaim instruction or advice on moral living; we
proclaim good – unbelievably good – news that the
battle has been won! The King has been victorious!
The day has been won on our behalf! We are invited
to celebrate at the table of unbroken fellowship with
God Himself when we respond and personally accept
the Good News of the Gospel.
He continued, with the following story as an example:
How Do You Experience God?
“Here’s a king and he goes into a battle against
an invading army to defend his land. If the king defeats the invading army, he sends back to the capital
city his personal messengers. The messengers are
spokesmen for the King. And they are very happy
messengers! That’s because the King is sending back
good news-ers. And what they come back with is a
report of wonderful events. They come back and they
say, ‘The enemy has been defeated and it’s been all
done. Therefore, respond with joy and now go about
your lives in this peace which has been achieved for
you.’
“But if the King doesn’t defeat the invading
army, and the invading army breaks through, the
King sends back his spokesmen, his military advisers,
who say, ‘Marksmen over here and the horseman over
there. We will have to fight for our lives… here are
the rites, here are the rituals, here’s what you must do
to be safe personally and to save yourselves and your
Do you fight for your spiritual life? Do you
labor daily with various deeds and disciplines imposed by well-intentioned others? Or do you enjoy
fellowship with the King who has already done it all
on your behalf?
I still love what is possibly the greatest culinary marvel of our age; the perfectly-produced
‘Cheese Toasty’! But I must say, accepting the Good
News of Christ and experiencing God through His
victory on my behalf instead of blindly conforming to
moral advice… that is the most delicious and fulfilling truth I have ever tasted.
Simply put, advice is instruction
about what to do. News informs you
of what has already been done.
Years later, the critical distinction between
advice and news was clarified further when I read an
old sermon series on 1 Corinthians 15. The writer
discussed it this way:
Accepting the Good News of Christ
...the most delicious and fulfilling
truth I have ever tasted.
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