Recently Cheryl and I watched that old movie “Pollyanna.” It is a classic as far as I am concerned. An orphaned child of missionaries goes to live with her stern Aunt Polly. Most people in the town are grumpy and complain about things. Pollyanna is always looking for the bright spot in daily living.

The town’s preacher offers a weekly sermon filled with hell-fire and brimstone and condemnation. People speak of leaving church each week with a sour stomach from what they have heard. They challenge Pollyanna to find something good in that! She said they should be glad that they have six days before the next Sunday rolls around!

It is easy for us to complain about our lot in life. We always focus on what has gone wrong, assuming that everything should always go the way we want it to. When something bad happens, we wail and moan and complain about how awful our lives are.

It could be worse. Much worse. We could get what our sins deserve.

Ezra 9:13 “What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this.

Psalm 103:10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

Have you ever taken the time to seriously consider that? God does not punish us as our sins deserve! Those hell-fire and brimstone sermons from that preacher in the movie reminded me of that. The punishments he described were what my sin deserves. But that is not what happens to me?  Why? Is not God just and fair? Of course He is. But He provided a substitute to take my punishment and make the payment for my sin so that I could be set free. He took your punishment as well and paid for it. He did that for everyone.

The Good News I find in Scripture describes this in great detail.

2 Corinthians 5:19–21 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I want to be the “Pollyanna” who keeps sharing this message with the people I meet. I hope you will, too.