I don't know how to say this in an understandable way, but the gospel comes alive to me more and more by God's grace as we face trial upon trial. I don't know if anybody can relate. It's just that the saving power of the cross overshadows everything and anything that we, from an earthly human perspective, tend to make so much of. I think of my own situation and I feel sadness, frustration and pain. But when I look at it from the perspective of the cross, I have hope, thankfulness and joy. How can I be unthankful or mad when I realise how much I have and how little I deserve? If our joy and hopes and dreams are limited to this life now, we could possibly keep that train running smoothly on track for a while, but soon, more often than not, we will find that its on a roller coaster track. There are no guarantees, formulas or bulletproof principles that we can apply to get what we want. This life is uncertain, full of pain and suffering. Yes, even for Christians. We don't live in paradise. We live in a world full of sin and imperfection. Sin caused us many troubles, but most of all, it separated us from God.
So you want to know how I'm doing? Better than ever, I'll have to say, because I understand the gospel better than ever before. I understand how little I have to offer God. In fact, I have nothing to offer God. He is holy, and I am sinful. A holy God can never look at sin and excuse it or try to overlook it. If He could, He wouldn't be holy anymore. A righteous God can never allow sin to go unpunished. If He did, He wouldn't be righteous anymore. He can't even say, that's ok, as long as you don't do it again. That would make Him a lousy and unrighteous judge! Our sin cannot go unpunished. The wages of sin is death. Eternal death. No one deserves the happiness they think they deserve. In light of God, who gives us the air that we breathe, whom we've sinned against and disregard and do not even seek to please in most cases, we really have no foot to stand on. Even our best efforts are like filthy rags in His sight.
Why do I always focus so much on sin and talk down on myself and others, why am I so negative, why do I have such low self esteem, you may ask. The more I think about the power of the gospel, the more I know how much God must love us. If we don't see our helpless state with no way of rescuing ourselves from what we rightfully deserve, we also cannot understand God's love and grace. Just focussing on God's grace has no merit if we don't know why on earth we need it. Would we need grace if we could obtain righteousness for ourselves without God's intervention? No. We needed someone to reconcile us to God, we needed a mediator. A mediator would need to understand the case of both parties. That is why God, in His grace (which does not take away from His righteousness or holiness) worked out a perfect plan from the beginning of time, to reconcile sinful and rebellious man to Himself. Not that He needed us. (He is 100% self sufficient.) He would send His Son, who would be fully God and fully man, (therefore the perfect mediator) and 100% sinless and perfect (therefore sufficient as an offering for sin) to pay the penalty on our behalf. He knew we could not do it ourselves.
2 Cor 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
So the glory of the gospel is effectively this: The One from whom we need to be saved is the One who saved us. Its the greatest love story of all time.
We often find ourselves, as Christians, seeking a blessing from God. God is a good God, and He wants to bless us, we are told. I'm so over that. God has already blessed us! Everything He did from the moment sin entered the world, was with one purpose in mind - TO REDEEM US. To BLESS us with the greatest blessing of all time – JESUS, the saviour of our lost souls.
Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
If that is not enough, we will never be content. This life will satisfy only a lucky few, for a short while. With the light of the gospel in mind, I realise more and more that my happiness is not in having a child or in acquiring success or good relationships or any other pursued thing here on earth. It all just seems so futile and petty in comparison to what I already have in Jesus. And that, dear friends, is all we need, I believe, to conquer any trial or suffering or lack. Hope, they say, conquer all things. A false hope will crush us even more, but a true hope will help us to endure even the most difficult of circumstances, until the end. Rom 8:18 [Paul said] 'For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.'
I encourage everyone therefore to go ahead and acquire all you want to acquire, but if you acquire only one thing, make sure its your eternal security. No death, sickness, or lack can ever take that away from you. And nothing you do can ever earn it for you. And nothing you acquire can ever be worth it, if it costs you your soul. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone. Nothing more, nothing less.
The gospel is about God, its not about us. I find that if I focus too much on myself I loose perspective and feel sorry for myself – I can easily find more than enough reason to get depressed. But when I focus on the gospel, the good news about Jesus who became a man, offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for my sin and proved His deity by being raised from the dead, I have a hope and a joy anchored in eternity and not in things that can be here today and gone tomorrow. I heard a good and relevant quote recently - 'Some people are so poor, the only thing they have is money.' Do we get that? Don't structure your entire life around money and when judgement day comes, you don't have any security!
I leave you with one of my favourite verses lately:
'For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?' Mark 8:36
If all of this seems a bit silly to you, you can ask the Holy Spirit to make it alive in your heart as He did in mine. It is the wisest thing you could ever do. 1 Cor 1:18: ‘For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’
