Gospel 101
The gospel leads us into four new understandings.
One, God made us and owns us. “It is he who made us, and we are his” (Psalm 100:3). His goodness puts a claim on our lives. He is honored and we are happy when we treasure him above all.
But is that how we respond to God?
Two, we refuse God every day. We run after empty pleasures and selfish goals. We may try to offset our guilt by adding some religion into our lives. But our problem is deeper: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). What offends God is not just the bad things we do; it’s that we treat him as a last resort rather than as the Fountainhead. It’s how we dishonor him and make ourselves miserable.
Then has God abandoned us? No.
Three, God can see when he isn’t wanted. But - get this - he humbled himself and came down into this world as an egoless nobody, to win us back. Jesus lived the perfect life we should have lived. He died the guilty death we deserve to die. Then God raised him from death, to show us that Jesus did live up to God’s standards, and for the sake of others. “Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
So then, what is our part?
Four, God invites and commands us to prize Christ as our only legitimacy before God. We must renounce our sinful disobedience. Even more, we must renounce our proud obedience. And we must receive, with the empty hands of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we turn over to him both our bad record and our good record, he credits to us his perfect record. Then all of God’s promises become ours forever. “To all who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
Will you receive Christ – right now?