The Gospel for Lifeنموونە
Know Your Place
Getting Our Toes Wet:
Imagine you are 16, and you have been hired by Chick-Fil-A to take people’s orders. On your first day, you go to the corporate office and barge into CEO Dan Cathy’s office and tell him his business model for the franchise is all wrong and you have a better plan. Now Mr. Cathy may be too gracious to laugh in your face and throw you out, but at the very least, he would tell you that since you have no experience at all in running a company, let alone an entire franchise, you should stick to performing your job to the best of your ability, and leave the running of the company to him.
Diving in Deep:
Perhaps you are thinking, what an obnoxious teenager to be so presumptuous as to treat a highly successful CEO like that; but this teenager’s attitude is more common than you think. In fact, we have all had the attitude of thinking we know better than someone who is much higher and more experienced than we are. This attitude is what is at the root of ALL sin. This includes the sin that got the angel, Lucifer, thrown out of heaven, to the sin of Adam & Eve in the garden, to the sin every person who has ever lived. All sin can be traced to either a lack of understanding or a lack of caring about the holiness of God and His position as Creator, Sustainer, and Sovereign Lord over the entire universe which leads us to either thinking we know better than God or wanting to be our own god.
In addition, failure to understand and revere the holiness of God, makes it impossible to worship Him as is His due. It will reduce our worship to mere appreciation of God, or worse, to coming before the Almighty with our hand out with an expectation of entitlement. The very first step in understanding the Bible and the Gospel is to get grounded in the holiness of God!
Back on Dry Land:
Having an understanding of the holiness of God, will keep us in our place before our sovereign Lord. His holiness permeates every attribute about Him. And instead of barging into His office telling Him we know better how to run His world, we will come before Him humbly, meekly, and grateful knowing that everything, even our very breath, is dependent upon His grace.
About this Plan
The word “Gospel” literally means, “Nearly too good to be true good news.” The Gospel is not just the message we need to know for our salvation. It is the life-saving, life-giving, and life-transforming message of our Almighty, Triune God! To study it, to know it, and to be able to articulate the Word of God is not so much our responsibility as it is our privilege!
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