Does it simplify the Gospel for you if you hear, “You’re not going to hell because you do (fill in the blank), but you’re going to hell because you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” Well, that’s what it comes down to. We all sin, we all fall short of God’s standard. Yes, He loves all of His children, but if you don’t accept the gift of salvation through His Son alone, you have no one to take the punishment for your sin, and you go to hell. God is holy, and we on our own cannot exist before Him because we’re covered in rebellion against His standard. Jesus’ blood, as weird as it may sound, washes us clean of that sin. We are made holy through His blood, blood that He shed on the cross at Calvary. The Good News – He us loved so much that He came to Earth as a frail human to take the punishment for our sins so that we could spend eternity with Him. Him – a perfect Father, lover of our souls, not a mean tyrant or someone so different from us that He can’t be around us. We were made in His image, God’s image, originally designed for companionship with Him. Rebellion came into the picture, we fell away from Him, but He had a plan for our redemption. We just have to accept the gift. You don’t have to clean yourself up first, He takes us as we are. It’s His job to clean us and give us faith after that… we have to choose to obey Him though. But when you fall in love with the Designer and Lover of you soul, obedience should be easy.
But that obedience doesn’t always come easy though. I walked in disobedience for a long time recently. But things are so much better on this side of obedience. Yeah, the decision hurt, but the blessings of listening to Him and doing what He said are amazing.
On that, does He talk to us today? That’s a huge theological debate in Christianity. But I know this, yes, He does. He speaks to me through His Word, the Bible. He speaks to me through other people. And through His still small voice in my spirit, which never goes against anything in the Bible.
Anyway, that’s my preaching for the day 🙂
Bragging on the Lord 