How good is the Good News?
That's what the word Gospel literally means, Good News. It comes from the Greek word evangelion and it's meaning is "a reward for good tidings". It's an interesting translation, especially when you consider how we always use it today. Just the word Gospel indicates a reward, and a good one at that, but how good is it?
What is our reward?
What are we being rewarded for?
These are all questions that when I quickly think about it, I think we all should be able to answer them very quickly and easily, but when I think a little deeper and dig a little deeper, I wonder, can we really?
How many of us really know the reward we have in Christ?
How many of us actually have looked to see what exactly the Bible tells us that reward is?
How many of us have just accepted what we've been told the Good News is, and have been content with that?
Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing people who haven't studied the Bible for themselves, not a lot of people get the gift of being able to set aside a large amount of time to study the Word in depth, I just think that this is something that we don't ever look closely enough at and just sit back and accept what we're told about it. I know I did for many years. But an amazing thing happened when I started to look a little closer. I realized that I didn't have it all figured out (who woulda thought eh? lol), and I realized that I may have missed a huge part of what the Gospel really is.
So what is the Gospel? Most would probably say that it is the Truth that Jesus came down from heaven and became a man and died for our sins so that we could go to heaven when we die. That's probably what I would have said in the past, it's a pretty basic belief that most Christians have. The problem is, that's not the full Gospel. That's just what we've been using to tell people why they should believe in Jesus, so that they can go to heaven instead of hell. Essentially, fire insurance for when we die. But that's not the real point. If that's the whole point and we're saved by grace through believing that Jesus died for our sins, then what is the point of our entire lives?
If it's all about getting out of here and getting to heaven, then why do we have to spend so many years here?
We know that we don't earn our salvation, so if our salvation is just about going and being in heaven, then why can't we just drop dead once we start to believe? It'd be a lot easier and a lot less painful.
Some may say our purpose is so that we can convince others to believe too so that they can escape with us, but is that all there is? Can't God just save them all without us? There's gotta be more to life than just that or else we're just God's mere workers getting him more workers so that He can fill up His house, and that doesn't sound like abundant life to me.
I don't want this post to go too long, since I actually want people to want to read this, so I'll just end here and leave you with this "primer" I guess we could call it.
I must say, I don't want anybody to think that I have it all figured out, because even I don't think that, and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to take anything away from the Gospel, because that's the opposite of what I'm doing. I just want to spend some time looking at what the Gospel is, according to the Bible, not according to what I've been told growing up. It's something that I've been wrestling with for the last couple years, and I'm hoping that by reading my posts you'll spend some time wrestling with it too. Sometimes we need to step back, forget what we think we know, and look at the Word with fresh eyes, the eyes of a child, so that we can really see what it says rather than only seeing what we think it says.
So please, bear with me. I don't know how many posts this will comprise of, or how long it will take, but I hope and pray that you will journey with me and I hope that it will challenge you and encourage you and excite you, because I know that that is what's been happening to me as I've journeyed through this so far.
Blessings
That's what the word Gospel literally means, Good News. It comes from the Greek word evangelion and it's meaning is "a reward for good tidings". It's an interesting translation, especially when you consider how we always use it today. Just the word Gospel indicates a reward, and a good one at that, but how good is it?
What is our reward?
What are we being rewarded for?
These are all questions that when I quickly think about it, I think we all should be able to answer them very quickly and easily, but when I think a little deeper and dig a little deeper, I wonder, can we really?
How many of us really know the reward we have in Christ?
How many of us actually have looked to see what exactly the Bible tells us that reward is?
How many of us have just accepted what we've been told the Good News is, and have been content with that?
Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing people who haven't studied the Bible for themselves, not a lot of people get the gift of being able to set aside a large amount of time to study the Word in depth, I just think that this is something that we don't ever look closely enough at and just sit back and accept what we're told about it. I know I did for many years. But an amazing thing happened when I started to look a little closer. I realized that I didn't have it all figured out (who woulda thought eh? lol), and I realized that I may have missed a huge part of what the Gospel really is.
So what is the Gospel? Most would probably say that it is the Truth that Jesus came down from heaven and became a man and died for our sins so that we could go to heaven when we die. That's probably what I would have said in the past, it's a pretty basic belief that most Christians have. The problem is, that's not the full Gospel. That's just what we've been using to tell people why they should believe in Jesus, so that they can go to heaven instead of hell. Essentially, fire insurance for when we die. But that's not the real point. If that's the whole point and we're saved by grace through believing that Jesus died for our sins, then what is the point of our entire lives?
If it's all about getting out of here and getting to heaven, then why do we have to spend so many years here?
We know that we don't earn our salvation, so if our salvation is just about going and being in heaven, then why can't we just drop dead once we start to believe? It'd be a lot easier and a lot less painful.
Some may say our purpose is so that we can convince others to believe too so that they can escape with us, but is that all there is? Can't God just save them all without us? There's gotta be more to life than just that or else we're just God's mere workers getting him more workers so that He can fill up His house, and that doesn't sound like abundant life to me.
I don't want this post to go too long, since I actually want people to want to read this, so I'll just end here and leave you with this "primer" I guess we could call it.
I must say, I don't want anybody to think that I have it all figured out, because even I don't think that, and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to take anything away from the Gospel, because that's the opposite of what I'm doing. I just want to spend some time looking at what the Gospel is, according to the Bible, not according to what I've been told growing up. It's something that I've been wrestling with for the last couple years, and I'm hoping that by reading my posts you'll spend some time wrestling with it too. Sometimes we need to step back, forget what we think we know, and look at the Word with fresh eyes, the eyes of a child, so that we can really see what it says rather than only seeing what we think it says.
So please, bear with me. I don't know how many posts this will comprise of, or how long it will take, but I hope and pray that you will journey with me and I hope that it will challenge you and encourage you and excite you, because I know that that is what's been happening to me as I've journeyed through this so far.
Blessings
