Our Need for the Gospel

Usually when I sit down to write a blog, I write about what the Lord has been teaching me lately. Recently, I was due to turn in a blog post and was praying about what to write. The only thing that came to mind was something I felt I had written previously. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I want to share what the Lord has been laying on my heart, particularly in this new season of life with two little boys, 17 months old and four weeks old. I desperately need the Gospel, and so do you!

As I was thinking through chapters five and six of Romans, this verse really stood out to me. “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) Every one of us is sinful at birth, completely dead in our trespasses and sins with no hope of doing anything to reconcile ourselves to a holy God who cannot be in the presence of sin. (Ps. 51:5, Eph. 2:1-5, Rom. 3:10-12).

God’s Plan

However, our creator God loved us and had a plan to reconcile us to Himself. Jesus was God’s plan. Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself by coming to earth as a baby, who was fully God and fully man, lived a perfect life for us, went to the cross and was crucified, taking on the full wrath of God, which was the penalty for our sins, was dead, buried, then three days later He rose again, defeating sin and death forever and is now seated at the right hand of God!

Placing our faith in Jesus and the Gospel allows us to have new life in Christ! Now we too, are learning how to die to sin, so that we can live to righteousness, by His grace. This is the amazing news of the Gospel and God’s plan for us to have life abundantly in Him and to be with Him for all eternity.

We Need the Gospel!

Sometimes we can view the Gospel as something that saves us, but maybe we don’t think about it much beyond that. I’m learning more each day that the Gospel is not something I need just once.  It is something I need every moment of every single day. I recently asked the Lord why I do laundry every day. I’ve heard people say that even the most mundane tasks matter and can bring glory to God. However, in my exhausted mind after no sleep from our newborn and a whiny toddler all day, I just couldn’t see how doing laundry each day really mattered in the grand scheme of eternity. I didn’t understand how laundry could possibly bring God glory. For the record here, I’m not saying you should do laundry every day, I’m just giving an example of something that could easily be considered unimportant.

The Lord sweetly brought scriptures from Colossians 3, Titus 2, Romans 12, Philippians 2 and many others to mind, helping me process the Gospel through the lens of doing laundry and why the Gospel makes it matter.

Romans 6:13 says, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” I have been brought from death to life and so everything matters because of the Gospel. I am a slave to righteousness in Jesus because of what He did for me. This is so worthy to think on moment by moment because it causes such rejoicing and joy when you really believe it for the reality that it is if you are in Christ Jesus. This is such a perspective changer when both your babies are screaming uncontrollably, and are smelling your house up with poopy diapers too! Ha-ha!

Our Gospel Reminder

While I may have written about this before, I needed to write it out again and really think on it throughout my days. How easy it is to forget this beautiful, amazing reality when everything else that seems more pressing in our everyday world (like a mountain of laundry), is right in our face. I just finished a book by Gloria Furman called Missional Motherhood, in which she said, “Discipleship is like waking up to remember that we are alive in Christ over, and over, and over again a hundred times a day, until the day when we no longer need to be reminded that we are in Christ forever because we can see Him.” I pray you are encouraged by this, one of your hundred reminders today of our need for the Gospel.

If you would like to know more about the amazingness of the Gospel, please contact Thistlebend through this post, on our website, or on any of our social media sites.

Blessings in Christ,

Thistlebend