The Gospel for Life预览

Let the Truth Be Told!

Getting Our Toes Wet:

Imagine yourself starving, wandering the streets of a city. You need food, or you will die. The first person you meet smiles, gives you a pillow and a blanket, then walks away. It’s nice to have a pillow and blanket, but you need food. The next person you meet tells you about their great experience at a local soup kitchen and how it helped them, but nothing more. The third person you meet sees you need food, takes you by the hand, and shows you the way to the soup kitchen. A person’s most important need is salvation through the shed blood of Jesus. We have to take them to the cross.

Diving in Deep:

Because Jesus came to save us from God’s wrath and punishment, the Gospel message is the most important thing to understand correctly – for ourselves and those we share it with! A false or half-truth Gospel is not what you want to be believing yourself or sharing with others! 

The Gospel message is this:  God, because He is Creator of everything, has the right to give us rules to live by, and He has. Because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God, every person who has ever lived since has been born with a sin nature and, as a result, has broken God’s law, making them deserving of His wrath and punishment of eternal damnation in hell. But, before the foundation of the world, God mercifully decided to save us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, Who has always been, is, and always will be fully God, voluntarily left Heaven to also became fully Man. He lived a perfectly sinless life, making Him an acceptable sacrifice to pay our debt with God and take our punishment, which He did by suffering and dying in our place. He was resurrected on the third day, an act that defeated Satan, sin, and death for those who believe. 

Our response to what Jesus has done needs to be to have faith (trust) that what Jesus has done reconciles us with God and gives us forgiveness for our past, present, and future sins. This faith is the only thing we have to stand on before God. As a result, we are freed from the bondage sin once had on us. When we sin, we repent and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to become more and more like Jesus, a process that won’t be completed until our mortal death or Jesus’ second coming.

Back on Dry Land:

Lots of things get pedaled as the Gospel. If the “Gospel” we’re hearing or sharing is more about us, not God, about how God wants us to be happy, healthy and wealthy; if we’re told that meeting someone’s tangible needs is sharing the Gospel without words, that we only have to share our experience or testimony, or even that we just need to ask Jesus into our heart, it’s not the Gospel. 

Everyone  – children, grandparents, the poor, the rich, all people – needs to hear that they are sinners who need saved. We can’t sugar coat it, water it down, or not speak the words. Everyone needs to hear the Good News of the Gospel!

Was this plan helpful? This plan was adapted from No Half-Truths Allowed: Understanding the Complete Gospel Message by Christine Paxson and Rose Spiller of Proverbs 9:10 Ministries. Learn more at www.proverbs910ministries.com .