Thursday, October 21, 2010

Focused on the Gospel

I always think it's amazing when God just really hits you with something in a way that you can't possibly miss! That has been happening to me lately. I am reading this great book called Counsel from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson. I will write a real review on it when I'm done (even though it is not a booksneeze book), but it talks about how everything we should do should be effected by the Gospel. Since I have started reading this things are popping up everywhere that confirm this for me! I was listening to the radio tonight and a sermon came on that talked about it. I read something else that said the same thing, and then I was invited to participate in a Facebook group that is reading the Gospels in 89 days (89 days to be more like Him)!

The more I think about it the more it just amazes me. The entire Bible is Christ centered. I have known that for awhile, but because of this I have always fought people who said that the Gospel is most important. The entire Bible IS important! However, if the entire Bible is centered on the Gospel, why shouldn't we be? I totally believe that it is important to read the entire Bible and that all Scripture is beneficial, but the Gospel is what saves. The Gospel is what changes us.

So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the Gospel to get their living from the Gospel. -- 1 Corinthians 9:14 NASB

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved....for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" -- Romans 10:9-10, 13-15

So as I am learning how the Gospel should be the center (not the whole, but the center), and that everything in our lives should be effected by it, I am trying to grow in my knowledge of the Gospel. I don't want it to ever become old news to me (which it kind of had...) I want it to be something that I am always blown away by. Something that I think about continuously, and something that effects every part of my life.

So that's where I am right now. I'm learning, rediscovering, and refocusing. I'm still doing my study in 1 Corinthians 13, but it is becoming less about me, and more about Christ. Christ loved us with Agape love. I will never be able to love that way, but I can allow Him to love others through me.

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