Day 2527 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Romans 3:23-24 NIV
So what is the Gospel? What's this story that we hear so many people talking about? What is this message that everyone needs to hear so badly? What could be so important that it inspires people to gather together and celebrate? What could be so powerful that it changes lives and helps people break free from the prisons they've built for themselves? What is so amazing about this Gospel thing?
The Gospel is evidence of God's love for us. It's the all-encompassing journey that each of us embark upon from sin to salvation. It's a brutal honesty that meets us where we are and tells us that we were made for more than that. It's a reminder that our choices have consequences that are sometimes bigger than we're able to face. It's this realization that all the pain, all the regret, all the humiliation that we've felt in life stems from poor choices we've made as a result of a fallen humanity that has taught us all that selfishness is paramount and sin is non-existent.
The Gospel opens our eyes to finally seeing that we are all indeed sinners. Each of us have made more bad choices than we can remember. We have all done things, seen things, learned things, and lived a life full of things that we should have never played around with. We've all allowed ourselves to call darkness home and play this wicked game of pleasure and depravity. We have all messed up and fallen well short of who we could have been, who we were meant to be.
The Gospel meets us in the shame that comes from all those brutal truths I just mentioned. It comes to us when we're hurting and losing hope. It seeks us out in the darkness that we've called home for so long. It opens our eyes to help us see just how far we've fallen and just how wrong our lives have been up to this point. It's this never-ending longing in our hearts that keeps on reminding us that while we're broken and hurting that there is hope for something better even though we don't deserve anything better.
The Gospel is this humbling message of how the Creator of the universe looks down at us in all of our filth, all of our shame, all of our mistakes, all of our selfishness and sees something worth saving. In God's immeasurable love, He chose to come to us knowing that we wouldn't make that choice on our own. He knows that we've been so blinded to the reality of sin that we would never change if something big didn't happen to awaken us from the illusions that we've long believed.
So He came for us. He sent His only Son to this earth to bring us back from the brink of destruction that our selfish and sinful ways was leading us toward. He sent Jesus to take our place, endure the punishment that our sins deserve, and open the door to something that we had walked away from long ago. He sent Jesus to carry our cross and die our death so that in doing so we could understand that our sins cause death and help us turn from those evil ways back to our Father. He gave us the chance at rebirth, renewal, and restoration through the blood of His Son.
The Gospel tells us that we're all broken but that there is hope for each of us in the cross. It's the reminder that no matter where we've been, what we've done, how ashamed we feel, or how long we've been carrying all that weight that there is hope for something better. There is freedom from those chains. There is healing for those wounds. There is joy to replace all that sorrow. Because there is Jesus.
Friends, the Gospel is a beacon reaching out through the hurt, the pain, the darkness that has blinded us calling us to something better than we can imagine. It's the truth that we've been far from who we were meant to be but that we have been loved all along by a God who has more mercy, more grace, more compassion, and more forgiveness than we could ever begin to imagine. And in that mercy, grace, compassion, and love He chooses to forgive us so that we can once again find hope in the salvation of Christ.
We have all fallen and failed more times than we can count. But in Christ, all those mistakes are covered and forgiven. That's the Gospel. That we're loved even though we aren't worthy of it. That we're forgiven even though we shouldn't be. That we are free if we only choose to be. Make that choice my friends. We literally can't make it without it.
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