The Gospel

Hi Mom,
I meant to write about the little girl and I will, but this just flowed out. Please read, you or dad and make the changes as necessary.
Love you guys, bye.

Hi Everyone,

 For the last several months the Lord has been teaching me about preaching, teaching and the deeper things of the Gospel. I read a book written by J.d. Greear called "GOSPEL" which really gave me a deeper understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how every aspect of my life should flow from the Gospel. Paul refers to the Gospel in Romans 1:16 "As the power of God". That's it! The Gospel of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit is God's power to change the hearts of man. It is the power to continue to change a man into the image of Christ and cause a believer to bear fruit worthy of repentance.

The very Gospel I have felt compelled to take to the ends of the earth is the same Gospel I forgot to preach to myself every day. I had not been meditating on the grace of God in my life everyday. I was not basing God's acceptance and love towards me by the greatest act of love and mercy ever shown, the death of Jesus. I had elevated myself, thinking that I could do something throughout a day to make God love and accept me more.

I was making God much smaller than He is and I was thinking that the God who created the heavens and the earth needed me somehow. Our God is personal but by no means is He small!!! A quick look at how big our God is; the distance between the earth and the sun is 93 million miles away. If the distance between the earth and the sun(93million miles) was represented by a sheet of paper then the next closes star in our Milky Way Galaxy would be a stack of paper 70 feet high! Even more impressive, if the earth was represented by a golf ball, the sun in comparison would be 15 feet in diameter. The sun is one million times the size of the earth. Now, there is a star named Canis Majoris that was recently discovered and if the earth was represented by a golf ball, then this star would be the height of.......... Mount Everest!!!

When I meditate on the greatness of our God I am no longer elevated and it is clear that such a mighty, Holy God needs no one, but has chosen to use us because of His mercy, love and affection for us. I can now see more clearly the sinful man that I am. As I continue to preach the Gospel to myself, I see more clearly the humility it took for God to become man and not just a man but a servant to man. The same God that spoke the universe into existence and breathed the stars was the same God who knelt down and washed the feet of the ones He created. He was the one, who was unjustly tortured to death and hung on a cross for me. As I see the greatness of God and base His great love for me by the cross, I overflow with gratitude and thank that God's great love and favour is given to me as a gift through Jesus Christ.

All that I do is now based on what Christ did for me on the cross. I do not serve the Lord out of duty, or because I think He needs me, or because I feel better about myself at the end of the day because I helped the poor, widows and orphans.

All I need for joy is the presence and approval of God and the only way I have these is by believing in what Jesus has done for mankind.

Thus I help the poor because I was once a poor man who Christ showed great mercy on. I show mercy because of the mercy Christ shows towards me, I forgive because I see how much I have been forgiven etc. I do not serve the Lord and obey the Lord because He will accept and love me more, this is false religion, God cannot accept and love me anymore today than He does right now.

This Gospel is the "Power of God" to change my heart and mould me into the image of Christ. A follower of Christ and the church should be emerged in this Gospel and the Power of God will again move in the lives of believers and in the church.

This is just scratching the surface of how the Gospel affects everything in a believer’s life, the church and everything and everybody the church touches. J.D. Greear's book "GOSPEL" is a must read, if the power of God, the God whom spoke the universe into creation and breathed the stars is not working within a believers life and the church, then the Gospel is not cantered.

 Caleb