Monday, March 5, 2012

Living in the Good of the Gospel

From the movie, "Passion of the Christ"

This past Sunday, March 4, 2012, I had the honor of preaching at New Hope Christian Fellowship, a church I'm helping to plant in Northwest Indiana, and I preached from John 8. The story is well known among Christians, and was powerfully portrayed in Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ."

My message was titled, "Living in the Good of the Gospel," and I encouraged everyone to always remember a few things that would help them do this. Among them are:
  • Never take your salvation for granted. (We all deserved death, but received life.)
  • Remember who we were without Christ, and rejoice in who we are with Him!
  • Like the woman in John 8, when rightfully condemned, we were allowed to walk away clean, redeemed, and forgiven.
  • All have sinned in some fashion. (Romans 3)
  • All sin is deserving of death. (Romans 6)
  • We received mercy, grace, and salvation so others may do the same. 
My hope and prayer for you as well, is that you'll take some time today to reflect on the goodness of the gospel, and how undeserving anyone is to receive God's mercy, but have. God wants His children to know they've been redeemed and set free. He wants us to know as well, that when we sin, He's prescribed how it should be handled in 1 John 1, namely-- confession.

If you've stared death in the face, and have lived to tell about it, thank the Good Lord above for His amazing grace. Living in the Good of the Gospel is a state of mind and an attitude of the heart. How you doing with it?