No one survives the preaching of the Gospel. Either the hearer will die to self and come to rest on the Bedrock of true belief, or they will die alone in their sins. There is no escape.
~ Makala Barnabas Doulos
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
~ paul, The Least of the Apostles, in 2 Timothy 3
Oh beloved, it is true.
The Gospel is this gorgeous wonderful news from Him, to us, for the fulfillment of His righteousness and the expansion of His glory. And it is to us – as a beloved servant once said.
The gospel is like a fresh, mild, and cool air in the extreme heat of summer, a solace and comfort in the anguish of the conscience.
~Martin Luther (1483-1546)
And the Gospel has the most delicious truth in it. These are the basics
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures
Christ was buried.
Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Christ has become the Firstruits of many brethren
We have died along with Him when we surrender in belief to Him.
We have been raised along with Him.
We have become completely new creations in Him.
We have been freed from sin.
We have been given everything for life and godliness.
We have become slaves of righteousness rather than sin
We have become His sons and daughters
We now live and move and have our being in Him.
We are inheritors of and partakers in an Eternal Kingdom that will smash evil on this planet and banish it from existence in the new Heaven and the New Earth.
We will enjoy His very Presence in intimate worship and communion forever.
This is VERY good news.
Notice the flow of all of this… It is Him moving towards us in torrential flows of goodness – and it is us yielding to the truth of the things He has done, is doing and will do in our lives.
Yet there is this incredible dynamic in our lives. We deny the Gospel. We are functionally atheists in how we live. We believe in Him initially, and then we start trying to do things in our own strength.
We try to get our theology right so as to believe more correctly than everyone else. Yet in the searching we miss the point entirely. HE is the point – not the facts about Him.
We hear the gospel… but it seems much too simple. Actually a bit boring really. We have to begin standing up for causes that simply cause us to become exhausted because we are fighting fights we were never designed to fight in our own strength.
We wink and nod at freedom, but replace it with bondage to rules thinking (like the pharisees of old) that if we make more rules surrounding the core of the gospel we will not violate the Gospel itself. But in making rules, we do the very thing we are trying to avoid. For rules will be broken. Our natures demand it. Only spirit receiving Infinite Power can become and remain holy.
We are shown paths of providence by the Author of providence itself, and yet we keep trying to make our paths work, even though they get narrower and rockier and twistier… yet we do all of this in some pathetic false sense of martyrdom, “trying to do the right thing for god.”
We fight against sin and lust in our lives and wonder why we feel so tempted and weak. This instead of simply accepting the truth that we have died to sin and are free to walk away from it.
We whine about not being able to touch the seemingly beautiful things around us, and miss the fact that all we have to do is change our focus and be enraptured in Beauty beyond our ability to describe.
We question the way God has made things and circumstances like flatlanders in 2D. This, instead of realizing the manifold wisdom of G_d is simply beyond our comprehension and simply trusting that He has things under control – and that certain aspects of creation are built into it to fulfill His purposes for it, and to drive us towards Himself.
We twist the true prosperity spoken of in the Gospel and make it a cheap gospel wherein we trade infinite riches for piles of rusting metal, and bundles of wood, hay and stubble; or become enslaved to love of fiat value represented by mere paper currency.
And we do all of these things in the name of trying to be a good christian or a good thinker or a good natural man. Oh how we have fallen.
There is an answer: Repent and believe the Good News of the Gospel: Jesus has done it all. Repent from trying. Change your mind about your own ability to do what is needed to be saved – and allow the Savior to actually do the saving.
Dear friend, it simply does not work any other way – and we know this to be true. Would that we might all repent and believe the Gospel tonight.
The gospel is neither a discussion nor a debate. It is an announcement.
~Paul Stromberg Rees (1900- )
