5/23/2008 Devotion article from Rick Warren

2008/05/23
Our Witness: God’s Good News
by Rick Warren


“Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” Mark 16:15 (NLT)
你們往普天下去，傳福音給萬民（萬民：原文是凡受造的）聽。!(可16:15)
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Every Christian is called to share with others what we’ve been given from God. But, I’m often asked, what exactly are we supposed to share? 每個基督徒被呼召去向人分享我們從神那裡所得著的。但是我常常被問到，我們到底要分享什麼？

Here’s your message in two words: good news. 就是兩個字: good news好消息

Mark says in our key verse today that we’re to tell the good news to everyone.
Do you like to get good news? Everybody does. Do you like to share good news? Most people do. At my house, we compete to see who gets to share the good news.
Now, many of us think, “The people I work with, my friends, they’re not interested in the good news.”
今天馬可福音這節關鍵的經文在說，我們要將好消息告訴每一個人。你喜歡得到好消息嗎？每個人都喜歡。你喜歡分享好消息嗎？大多數人是如此。在我家，我們比賽誰有向人分享好消息。我們當中許多人會想：和我一起工作的人，我的朋友都對好消息沒興趣。

But, we’re dead wrong! They may not be interested in religion, but they are interested in the good news. The problem is not that our friends and co-workers aren’t interested; the problem is we’ve forgotten how good the good news really is.
但我們實在是錯了！他們可能對宗教沒興趣，可是他們對好消息有興趣。問題並不是我們的朋友和同事沒有興趣，問題是我們已經忘記這好消息有多麼好。

Once you’ve been a Christian for a while, you forget how miserable it was to live without hope. You forget what it was like to worry where you would go when you die. You forget what it was like to have guilt, fear, regrets, bitterness, and boredom in your life – a life before Christ brought meaning, purpose, and significance.
一旦當你成為基督徒一段時間，你忘記了活在沒有盼望是多麼的痛苦，你忘記了為死後的去處而擔憂將是什麼樣子，你忘記了在你生命中有罪惡感、懼怕、後悔、苦毒、厭倦是什麼樣的景況 (這是一種在基督將意義、目的與重要性帶到生命之前的景況)。


What happens to most of us is that the longer you’re a Christian the more you tend to take for granted how good the good news really is. Likewise, most people who do not know Jesus don’t understand how good the good news really is.
我們大多數在成為基督徒越久就越將這好消息視為理所當然。同樣的，大多數不認識耶穌的人不明白這好消息到底有多好。

If you go out on the street and ask people, “How do you convince God to like you?” most of them will probably say, “You’ve got to work real hard to get God’s approval and you’ve got to be really, really good. You’ve got to keep a lot of rules and you probably have to follow a lot of regulations and do some rituals. You’ve got to be religious. I’m none of those things, so I’m never going to please God or get to know him.” If that’s what some people think the good news is, it’s no wonder they don’t get too excited about discussing it.
如果你去街上問人：「你怎麼說服神去愛你？」大多數的人大概會說：「你必須工作很努力以得到神的認可，你必須要十分的好，你必須要遵守許多律法，你可能必須要遵行許多條規和儀式，你必須要很虔誠。因位我一樣都做不到，所以我永遠也不能取悅於神或認識神。」如果有些人是這麼認為，難怪他們沒興趣去討論它。

But here’s the good news: you are able to enter into a relationship with God through an attitude of trust – trust in Jesus Christ – and not through a religion of rules, regulations, and rituals.
但是好消息是：透過相信，你能進入與神的關係—相信耶穌基督—而不是透過教條、規章和儀式。


God says you get to know him just by trusting him. If you trust his Son with your life, you get forgiveness for your past, a purpose for living in your present, and a home in heaven in the future. 神說你只要相信祂就能認識祂。如果你用全人相信神的兒子，你的過去便得到饒恕，你的現在便是一個有目標的人生，在未來有天家的住所。

Is that good news? Do you think anybody you know would be interested in that?
The good news keeps sounding better and better because the bad news of the world keeps getting worse and worse.這是不是好消息？你認為你認識的人當中是否對這有興趣？
因為世上的壞消息一直變得越來越壞，這好消息也就顯得越來越好。