Colossians 1:6

6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

New Living Translation

Hearing the Good News about Jesus is not like hearing other news. It isn't some story that makes us feel good, but is soon forgotten. Instead, it's purpose is to change our lives.

If we truly believe the message of Jesus - that He is God, He loves us, He died to pay for our sins so we can be completely forgiven, and that He rose from the dead, providing for us the promise of resurrection and eternal life as well - then we will never be the same.

It makes me so sad when people are "converted", but then continue to live their lives as if nothing has changed. That indicates to me that they took this incredible message of love and grace, and turned it into nothing but a story and a "fire insurance policy."

I wonder if sometimes this is the fault of the church. We stress the truth of forgiveness and the promise of escaping Hell and going to Heaven. In the process, we lose sight of the real power of this message.

Jesus didn't die just to get us out of Hell. That is a wonderful gift, and I don't want to diminish it. But He died for much more than that. He died and rose again in order to set us free from sin.

The promise of salvation comes not just from confession, but from repentance. What that means is we don't just admit we behaved badly. I've seen many people make such a confession with an attitude of resentment. It is as if they are upset about being caught, but have no intention of really changing. Or perhaps they are going to change - they intend to make sure they don't get caught again!

Repentance means that we agree completely that we have behaved badly, that our attitudes are messed up, and that at our core we are self-centered and sinful. It means that we have decided deep down that we don't want to live with this sin. Not only do we want to be forgiven, but we want to be changed.

Once we repent, the power of the Good News is unleashed! The Holy Spirit goes to work, changing our desires, our dreams, our very thoughts. It doesn't all happen overnight, but the process should begin immediately. And over time, we should see progress as God is changing us from the inside out.