Foundation: Gospel
Gospel simply means good news. The good news is Christ. Believing in what Christ Jesus did for us is the foundation of everything I will be writing about on this blog. It’s the foundation of my life. We can put our trust in Christ because of what he did for us. He is our hope.
Our problem is that we’re separated from God.
"Your sins have caused a separation between you and your God . . . " Isaiah 59:2
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23
The reason sin separates us from God is because he is perfect, just and holy. The relationship that he created us to have with him is broken. To sin, is to turn our back on God. Sin deserves punishment. Because God is just, he cannot ignore it.
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You” Psalm 5:4
Yet,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16
Because God loves us, he made a way back to relationship with him. His son Jesus came and lived a perfect life without sin. He did for us, what we couldn’t do on our own. Then, he offered his life as the payment for the debt of our sins, something we could never pay.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
And then,
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Because of this,
"If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." Romans 10:9-10
That’s it. There’s nothing else to it.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
From the moment that you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, God sees you as he sees his perfect son. He doesn’t hold your sins against you, because Jesus paid the price for any sins in your past, present, or future. From this point on, the Christian life is about living in relationship with God. Serving him, not because you’re trying to earn anything, but out of love. I like what Elyse Fitzpatrick says in Counsel From the Cross,
“Most of us have never really understood that Christianity is not a self-help religion meant to enable moral people to become more moral. We don’t need a self-help book; we need a Savior. We don’t need to get our collective act together; we need death and resurrection and the life-transforming truths of the gospel. And we don’t need them just once, at the beginning of our Christian life; we need them every moment of every day.”
I imagine that for many of you, I'm not saying anything new, and I know that there are others who can explain it more eloquently than I have, or maybe you don’t accept what I’m saying. That’s okay. We’re all on different journeys. I just wanted to be clear and up front, from the beginning of this blog, of where I’m coming from and what I believe. Whatever you believe, you’re welcome to follow along as I write on this blog about trusting in God. If you have any comments or questions, you’re welcome to leave a comment in the public space below or contact me privately via my connect page. I’m glad you’re here.
