If you have made it this far in reading my blog posts, then you are probably sick of hearing me harp on and on about how bad the church is for wandering so far away from the gospel. But listen, this isn’t a railing against the church so much as it is a railing against me. This is personal. That is why I am so passionate about it.
Look, this is what happened, in my own life as well as that of the church, we got cold and lazy. The culture of the world started pushing back hard against the church and the gospel. The world doesn’t want to hear it, it’s just that simple. And the louder the world got about telling Christians to shut up and keep their religion to themselves, the quieter the church got. You know what I am saying is true, because YOU got quieter. We stopped being bold about sharing our faith because we didn’t want to be labelled as being judgmental or bigots. We just wanted the world to like us, so we just focused on LOVING everybody. The church quit talking about God’s judgement and His wrath and just started telling everybody how much God loves them. Well, that’s true, but that’s only HALF the message! We only wanted to proclaim the parts of the bible that the WORLD would accept. That is crazy! But it happened just like that. And now we have generations of people who profess to be Christians that don’t even know what the Gospel is, let alone defend it when it is questioned or opposed.
Somewhere along the way, things have to get turned around and I think that time is now. Someone has to recognize the deficiency and do something to fix it. My hope and prayer are that this change can start with us – you and me, learning together and then getting excited about what we discover and then telling others. The road to Glory is paved with the bricks of the gospel. There is no other road and we were not meant to travel it alone. Point the way, friend. Do not be content that your family and friends know Jesus. Look around you. A sea of humanity is lost and blind. Lift up your head out of your hand-held devices and LOOK AT PEOPLE all around you! Look at their faces. Look at the shape their lives are in. They are being devoured by the enemy unhindered! If you are a Spirit-filled, bible-believing, born again follower of Jesus Christ then YOU have the answer! You have to care! Do not let your love for mankind grow cold. Let’s decide right here to stop being calloused and lazy.
Ok, enough about that.
IF you continue to follow my posts, then let me tell you things are about to get crazy exciting. Why, you ask? Because I think I am going to show you things that will revolutionize the way you see God, yourself and the world around you. Hey, I have been a Christian for over 28 years, and I am finding out just how ignorant I have been about the gospel. When God first started revealing these truths to me, I was blown away. Sometimes I would just sit for a long time with my mouth hanging open marinating in my own “wow” moment.
I know scripture. I have been an avid bible student for all my Christian life. But sometimes we filter His word through what other teachers have taught us that may not be exactly correct. Our view gets distorted and it’s hard to “unsee” through those lenses. It’s like trying to put a puzzle together wearing your grandma’s glasses. If we take the glasses off, we can see the pieces more clearly, put them together more correctly and see the whole big picture start to take shape. All of a sudden, those difficult pieces that sat sidelined for so long start to fit in too. When we get our understanding in focus, we get high definition revelation!
About ten years ago I decided I wanted to become an EMT. Turns out I didn’t really like it and wasn’t all that good at it. But I learned a whole lot of stuff that is still with me today. One of them is the ABC’s of CPR. Airway, breathing, circulation; over and over again that got hammered home because it didn’t matter what else your patient had going on, if he didn’t have those 3 very important things going on, it didn’t’ matter what else you did to help him.
The gospel has got its own ABC’s that is foundational knowledge and we need to know it well, so we are going to hammer them home, too. Not to overuse my puzzle analogy but, when I do a puzzle, the very first thing I do is find all the edge pieces and start putting that frame together. Once I have that done, I organize my other pieces in order to start filling it in. The ABC’s of the gospel is the framework. All the other stuff are the pieces that fit together make up the whole message of the bible.
The gospel ABC’s have 6 basic elements, which we went over before, but like I said, we will go over again and again. They are,
- The Virgin Birth of Christ
- His perfect, sinless life
- His death
- His resurrection
- His ascension
- And His promised return
In studying each of these elements in depth, we will have a foundation that all the other truths in the bible build upon.
Another thing.
The good news is only good because of the bad news. To completely understand and appreciate the wonderful, life giving message of the gospel, you also have to have a good grasp on the BAD NEWS!
Not to put you on the spot, but do you know what that is?
Well, don’t feel bad because I didn’t either.
The bad news boils down to one thing, we are all sons and daughters of Adam. Adam lost something that we cannot regain on our own. And I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that most Christians today probably do not know what that thing is.
We are going to discover what that thing is in our next study. And when you learn of it, you will see how there is nothing you can do to earn your ticket into heaven, no matter how saintly you are. You will see how important the works of Christ are and how we can apply them to ourselves. You will understand that Christ came to do ONLY what He could do, and how it is impossible for us to achieve any of it without Him. The message at the heart of the gospel is the “undoing” of what the devil did through Adam. Christ came to do what I call the “re” words- redeem, renew, recover, restore, regenerate, reverse, reveal, regain, remedy- all that our earthly father Adam lost. So, guess what, we are starting at the beginning of the Ol’ Glory Road and if you join me in my next post, have your bible out and turned to Genesis 1:1!
Praying you will join me!