Tell It!

As the NCAA basketball tournament brings sports fans through the time of year that is known as March Madness, I am reminded of a visit that I made to the NCAA basketball tournament a few years ago.

We Georgia fans have not often experienced March Madness with our basketball team. Yet, one year we did qualify and were assigned to play in Charlotte.

I hung around for all of the games that day. During the course of the last game of the day I went to a pay phone in the coliseum and called my wife just to “check in.”

When she answered the phone the first words out of her mouth were, “How do you feel about being a Daddy?” That was her not-so- subtle way of telling me that our daughter was about to become a part of our lives.

My first reaction was to shed a tear. Those who know me well would say it was because Georgia had lost its first round game but that was not the case. The reason I shed a tear or two was because of the utter joy of the good news that I had received.

The second reaction that I had to the news was to stay at the phone and make about fifty dollars worth of phone calls to various places around the country sharing the news with persons that were important to me. There was good news and it had to be told.

Each of us who are followers of Jesus Christ is in possession not only of good news but of the Good News, the Good News of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. We who are followers of Jesus Christ know the importance of Jesus Christ in our own life.

Logic tells me that we should also be eager to share this Good News. In accepting the grace that Christ has bestowed upon us something wonderful has happened to you and to me. Our first impulse should be to tell what it is that has happened to us.

The truth is that we are fairly quick to share most of the good news we receive. Births, engagements, jobs promotions, and other exciting news are reports we spread rather quickly. Indeed one of the great joys in receiving good news is to tell the good news.
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Therefore it stands to reason that one of the great joys in receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ is the sharing of the Good News. Yet, often we are reluctant to do so. I am not so sure why that is. Perhaps it is because we have seen others be obnoxious in witnessing their faith.

Perhaps it is because of the immense gravity and importance of the things of faith we feel less than qualified to speak of it. Or it could be that we are afraid of the reaction we might receive.

All of these are valid reasons but there is one thing that trumps them all and that is the fact that Jesus commanded his followers to tell the Good News. In fact he said to go into the entire world. The entire world includes family, friends, and neighbors.

I met my wife almost 20 years ago when I went to Toccoa in the northeast corner of our state to visit an old college fraternity brother. He introduced me to a young lady who was the sister of his business partner. I married her five years later.

In actuality this is all that sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ entails. Witnessing our faith is little more than a person introducing two of his or her friends to each other. It’s as simple as that. Introduce your friend Jesus to another friend. That is how we share the Good News. We have Good News and it has to be told.