Bad News, more bad news, and even more bad news! It’s rare today to hear anything positive, so if you spend too much watching or reading news updates you will be living in a constant state of fear, worry, panic, anger, confusion or any number of negative emotions. The best way to describe how many of us have felt during the past several months is OVERWHELMED! The dictionary defines the word “overwhelmed” as “to [be] overcome or overpowered by a superior force, to [be] buried beneath a mass of something. The news will do this to you. Just last week I had a bout with a “depression” I couldn’t shake. I overall felt “overcome and overpowered by something…” Typically, I am a positive person, but last week I found myself with a full-on case of the blues, and I couldn’t shake it. As I tried to identify what was causing these feelings, the Holy Spirit- the great reminder- made it crystal clear. I was becoming “overcome and overpowered by” too much bad news. Reading, listening and watching updates on news outlets or social media posts about the virus, the protests, the disunity, the societal unrest, and the overall brokenness of our nation and world is a recipe for negative thinking and was causing me to fall into a mental funk that I was powerless to pull myself out of. Maybe you have felt this way at some time or another. Maybe recently. Maybe today. 

This pervasive sense of doom is caused by allowing supposed “facts”, opinions and information to permeate my thinking. Yet, finding the truth in the ever-changing reporting and new scientific findings is impossible. We can scour news sources, websites and medical books and journals hoping to find something that will make us feel better, but what we will find more often than not is unclear, inconclusive or contradictory findings that leave us more discouraged than when we started. Sure, there may be some news that is reliable at times, but in the end, there is only one source of information in our world that is completely unchanging and true — God’s Word! 

God’s word contains the most reliable, factual, powerful, life-changing message in the world. From a historical standpoint, the Bible is hands down the most trustworthy record we have. It trumps all other historical documents of its time in terms of reliability. Also, every archaeological find related to Biblical places and people has only strengthened the Bible’s reliability and has never refuted it. In addition thousands of prophecies have been fulfilled from both the Old Testament and New Testament which is a statistical improbability. Fulfilled prophecy is one of the most powerful proofs for the Bible’s trustworthiness! In the end, hundreds of skeptics have turned to Christ because of the Bible’s reliability, so if you have any doubt whatsoever that God’s Word is the only “news source” worth reading, here are a couple of good links worth exploring! https://www.equip.org/article/bible-reliability-m-a-p-s-to-guide-you-through-bible-reliability/

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/is-the-bible-reliable/

All of this leads me to a suggestion for us. If we don’t want to be overwhelmed anymore by the negative, we need to limit, avoid and even shut down and turn off all of the bad news and get back to the GOOD NEWS! We need to make a commitment to make God’s Word our source for news and “fact check” the messages we are hearing out there by holding them up to the truth of the Word!

Just to prove my point, here are just a few headlines you can trust!

FIRST CENTURY TEXT REVEALS THE SECRET TO LIFE!

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have LIFE in his name. John 20:31

CURE (FOR SIN) DISCOVERED! 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2, 

JESUS CANCELS DEATH! 

 But it is now shown to us by the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus. He destroyed death, and through the Good News he showed us the way to have life that cannot be destroyed. II Tim. 1:10, 

PEACE IS FOUND!  

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

FAITH IN JESUS BRINGS VICTORY! 

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.– I John 5:4

GOD’S LOVE CAN’T BE STOPPED!  

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:37-39

It’s TIME to CHANGE THE CHANNEL friends, and let the Word of God overwhelm us!