Hi Beautiful!

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns! ~ Isaiah 52:7 (NLT)

Have you ever received a message that just made you go: “Ummmmm. What’s this?” Whether it’s online or via text message, when you enter the digital realm, you will receive messages that don’t really make sense. Not too long ago, I got a strange text that just said “Hi beautiful.” I’ve been called lots of things, but the word beautiful rarely, if ever, comes up. My reply was, “Not sure who you are, but I’m a dude. Are you sure you are texting the right number?” There were no further messages. I was a bit disappointed.

Yup, in our day and age, it’s easy to get miscommunication. Whether it’s trying to decipher the latest emoji that someone keeps posting or trying to figure out strange, new abbreviations for popular sayings (BTW, SMH means “Shake My Head” … Oh, and BTW means “By the Way.”) it’s pretty easy to get confused.

It should come as no surprise, then, that our world is really confused when it comes to God. There are so many misunderstandings about His character, His law, and the truths of the Bible out there that most people in the world just throw up their hands and give up even trying to understand. Don’t believe me? Just mention the book of Revelation to someone who didn’t grow up in the church and you generally get one of two responses: “That book is really confusing,” or “That book is so fake.” Of course, there are different variations on these two thoughts, but the root is the same.

So, here we have this message penned by the prophet Isaiah. “How beautiful…are the feet of the messenger who brings good news.” The word “Gospel” literally means “Good News.” So, for us, God is saying He finds joy when we deliver the good news about what He has done through Jesus Christ.

But, here’s the trick. We must be good messengers. We must task ourselves with communicating the Gospel clearly, without our own opinions or thoughts thrown in. We need to clearly represent the character of God, who is a loving, caring, merciful, grace-giving God. We need to be the messengers that bring the love of Jesus to the world.