I’ve been hearing conversations lately by church leaders realizing the need for the church to regain a central focus on the cross and resurrection of Christ—the story of God’s cosmic defeat of the principalities and powers of death and evil—for truly sustaining hope. Sadly, some faith communities have lost this emphasis in exchange for a primarily individualistic emphasis of a personal experience of forgiveness merged with positive advice for a happy life.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, church leaders began to realize that—for those grieving the loss of loved ones or loss of a livable income or those weighed down by the suffering they saw all around them—messages focused on individual happiness were ringing hollow.

We need hope that truly reckons with the full weight of sin and death’s wounding of our world—hope that’s deeper than death.

The gospel is the story of God’s redemption of a wounded cosmos through the cross and resurrection of Jesus—an event that’s changed the fabric of reality. One that, in God’s grace, we’ve been invited to share with the world.

Only when we fully reckon with the bad news—the depth of sin and death’s stranglehold over creation—can we grasp the wonder of the good news, that “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Even as we lament honestly the “groaning” of creation (v. 22), we can experience the good news that Jesus is alive! Working through communities of people filled with the Spirit and with hope. Carrying us from death into glorious resurrection life.

Monica La Rose, Our Daily Bread Author

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Defining Moments

Read the stories of missionaries in Asia Pacific and discover the defining moments that turned these ordinary people into faithful messengers of God on extraordinary missions.

We hope that the stories of those who took the step of faith to reach out to people can be an inspiration for you to carry on in serving our God.

Our Daily Bread Ministries Myanmar is not funded or endowed by any group or denomination, nor do we receive any funding from our United States office. Instead, we rely on the support from individuals in both Myanmar and elsewhere to continue in our ministry to God’s people here. Join us in our mission of making the life-changing wisdom of the Bible understandable and accessible to many more in Myanmar.