You BelongSample

You Belong to the Gospel

Over the Thanksgiving break, I sat around the living room listening to my wife give a very detailed account of her own birth to my family. “I was stuck in the birth canal,” she exclaimed. I sat there astonished at the vividness of her story— thinking to myself, “It’s not like she actually remembers her own birth.”  The more I thought about it, the less I felt that I could remember of my own childhood. In fact, the first memory that came to my mind was from the first grade. 

How is it then that she was able to give such a vivid narration of her own birth? The story that she was telling was not in fact her story at all, even though she was the main character. Everything she was telling my family was simply details passed down to her by her mother and father. What I was hearing was just a report of what actually happened— an account that was filled with a perspective that was not currently in the room. 

The Gospel that we preach is very similar. It is an exposition of the things that have happened concerning Jesus— one full of various perspectives. Though we have the privilege of reading four different viewpoints of this Gospel, the story of Christ can be simplified to one simple statement: Christ came and died in our place so that we might have life (1 Peter 2:24). The unique dynamic of this message is that it can be told from many different positions. The power of the Gospel can touch many lives in varying ways. It is because of this that the Gospel that you tell may not sound like the Gospel that I tell. The Gospel is the good news of what God has done in your life. 

If you have given your heart to Jesus and have accepted His forgiveness, then you have a part in the Gospel. You have been given a command to tell people about the life changing Gospel message (Mark 16:15-16). In the same way that my wife gave an account of her birth, you must now give an account of your birth— that you have been born again through the grace of Christ Jesus.