Skip to main content

 

WHEN THE GOSPEL IS RECEIVED

When the Gospel is received, embraced, and surrendered to it does major things in the life of the one who believes.

It changes the way people live. They turn from idolatry to serve the True and Living God. Idols are those things in life people look to, sacrificing time and resources to try and find meaning, purpose, esteem and recognition, safety and hope. Those things are not inherent in anything this present world system has to offer, regardless of the plausibility of the promises that are made. Wholeness of life is not the product of human effort. Wholeness of life is only found in God. Wholeness and soundness of life are only known when God, Himself, comes and makes His home in you. Only He can restore a human life into wholeness.

That is what salvation means. When a person believes what God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they see that all they have ever hoped for has not been done by human effort, but by the power and goodness of God. Idols demand everything sacrificed for promises they can never deliver on. The Gospel declares that God has already made the only sacrifice for us that can restore us once again into Life. Turning from Idols to serving the living God in an eternal relationship of grace in faith makes the difference between life and death.

Receiving the Gospel also results in a radical reorientation of one’s focus in life. It results in a growing anticipation and longing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. There is an ever-growing, radical reorientation in perspective as the believer grows in their awareness that this world and its ways are not “home” any longer. The things of the world have never and will never satisfy the deep longings and hunger of the human heart. “Stuff” no longer is the ground of comfort, security and peace. There is no ignoring of life and people around you, but you no longer draw life FROM the world and its ways. You are set free, with a heaven-ward perspective, to live with open hands and open hearts to give to others out of the abundance of grace and love that Jesus Christ is living out within you.

Believing and receiving the Gospel changes everything.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHAT DO YOU BLESS? It would be an act of utter folly and disaster were I to choose to "bless" what God will not bless. God's wrath is set against anything and anyone that would try and hinder you becoming all He created you to be and to grow in by being united to Him through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing arbitrary about the Word of God. He is very specific on what will make for life and what will not. Human life only becomes human life when the Holy Spirit becomes Life withing a believer. Being united to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the follower of Jesus becomes a new creation and begins to live Life as God intended. God begins the good work, and He is the One who will bring it to competition. Somethings will NEVER make for life. What God calls sin, missing the mark of what will make for life, is always sin regardless of what culture anywhere and anytime say to the contrary. Sin cannot save, heal, redeem, restore or remake...
Post a Comment
Read more
 INFINITELY MORE Ephesians 3:20-21 " Now all glory to God, Who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.   Glory to Him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen." In the Gospel of John, many of His followers turned away because of the covenant commitment He required of those who would follow Him. That covenant declared that what was to happen to Jesus would also happen to them. We, too, must lay our lives down and choose the will and way of God's Kingdom over all else. Those in the crowd knew that in Jerusalem, the Jewish religious leaders were plotting and planning Jesus' destruction. To follow Jesus to that degree required denying self and the thrall of the world and its ways, even to the point of laying one's life down by refusing to deny the Lord and His salvation. Jesus turned to the 12 and asked, " Are you also going to leave?" ( John 6:67-...
Post a Comment
Read more
BEWARE DECEPTION   Deuteronomy 18:9 “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. Deuteronomy 12:29-30 “When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land, do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’ Pragmatics was the downfall of Israel when they took possession of the Promised Land. To the unredeemed eye, it seemed that the fertility gods and agricultural gods of the pagan nations actually were helping the indigenous peoples. Just because something works does not make it right or good.  God promised to prosper His people if they would trust Him to the point of obeying His Word. God's Word is not empty. When He directs and commands, it is always for...
Post a Comment
Read more