1. What is the Gospel message and why does it matter?
1/28/21
HELLO! <3 It has been way too long since I last published a blog and I am sorry for that. I actually had surgery two days ago to remove my gallbladder. The good news is that the surgery pain I feel now doesn’t even hold a candle to the pain I was in prior. Basically, I have had an especially hard two or three weeks and an overall rough 6 years of getting to the place where my doctors figured out what was wrong.
I say all of that to explain where I’ve been and to let you know I am back! :) And also, to thank all of you for your thoughts, prayers, and kindness.
This week is starting a new series! For those of you who have followed my posts for a while, you likely know I identity as a follower of Christ. I have been getting a lot of questions lately about faith from you guys and I figured it would be a great topic for my next mini-series. This is one that could LITERALLY go on for years, but I am going to hit five general points for now!
1. What is the Gospel message and why does it matter?
2. What do I have to do to become a Christian?
3. What do I do when my faith grows stale?
4. What does it look like to be in the world but not of the world?
5. Why I am a Christian
No matter how many courses I’ve taken in Bible or how deep my relationship is with Christ, I don’t think I will ever feel quite qualified to speak into any of these things. I have noticed the enemy doing a lot of work to deter me from this particular subject over the last few weeks and that tends to mean someone out there needs to come across this blog. So, I don’t know who you are or how many of you there are, but I am going to push through all of that today in hopes that this is helpful to you. Please give me some grace!
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
- John 3:16
Across the board, this verse is ranked as the most popular in the Bible. Many of you are familiar with it, if for no other reason than Tim Tebow several years back. During a playoff game on January 8th, 2009, he wrote John 3:16 across his face. It resulted in 90 million people going to google and typing it into the search engine. But that isn’t the end of this story, and a short three years later to the day in 2012 this would happen:
Now in 2021, 9 years later, this verse is still at the top of every article and search engine for “Most popular verse in the Bible.” But why? Why did Tebow choose this one singular verse for such a significant event with so many people watching? What is so profound about it that no matter how many cultures, civilizations, places, or centuries it travels across, that it stands out?
Religion is a hard topic, so is faith. We have so many options to choose from and ways of shaping our worldview. Imagine it like trying on glasses with different prescriptions- Say that all of us were in need of a pair because we couldn’t see otherwise. And say that each line of thinking from atheism to agnosticism to other world religions were all a particular and unchanging prescription. Some may work better than others, some may not change your sight at all. But after the years I have spent studying, reading, and experiencing God tangibly in my own life, I have found the clearest sight with the lenses designed by Jesus Christ. And I imagine that is because He’s the only God that reduced himself to exist at our level, within the limited means of humanity, in order to give us a direct roadmap for how to live life most fully on earth. And not only this, but a promise that we will have eternal life upon death. No other God in any other world religion has or would go to those particular lengths: If you can imagine a tall mountain with every other God on the top already, imagine Jesus coming down from the top to personally guide each of us up every step of the way. And that is just one reason among many others that I have chosen Christ as my truth.
What I do not want to do today is discredit or disrespect people with views opposing to mine, so I hope that you see my heart here. Truth is an exclusive concept and so for me to claim that the words of John 3:16 are in fact truth, it will be bold and offensive by nature. Just like it would be for you to claim atheism or Buddhism or anything else. No matter what path you decide is truth, it will be bold and offensive. Even if you say it doesn’t matter what you choose and that we all end up in the same place- that is a truth statement as well. None of us get the luxury of an easy answer on this topic. And I don’t want you to walk away from this blog and accept everything I am saying either, I want this to be a point from which you go search for the answers yourself. This is a conversation starter and perspective to consider.
To continue on- I am going to summarize exactly what the Gospel is and why we need it:
- God created all things and then He created humans to partner in furthering that creation. He gave us the authority to steward all living things. The world sat like a blank canvas for us to paint. And because He loved us, we were given free will. This ultimately puts the power of life and death in our hands- we can choose to love God or hate God, we can choose to protect creation or destroy it, we can choose to trust God or deny God. But had He not given us this freedom, love wouldn’t exist in the first place. And so, humanity took that freedom and decided that they could lead themselves better than God could. Which placed God in a position where he could no longer protect us from Satan, the opposing force to love who has sought to mislead us since the beginning.
- At this point, there was absolutely no reason for God to do anything else. And yet His love for us never wavered no matter how many times we discarded and denied Him over the course of history. He gave us a promise to send His one and only Son into enemy territory, knowing that he would pay the ultimate price for the betrayal that we committed. No other death would have been sufficient to save us but His, and so He came. He modeled how to live life in submission to God’s greater plan and then He took the punishment that we deserved; enabling us to now have personal relationships with God through the Holy Spirit living within us. And to have life eternal with Him upon our death.
Oh goodness- I wish I had more time to unpack so many things. I wish I had more time to dig into the scripture and the context and the millions of little details and prophecies and ways in which Jesus reveals Himself. But I would run much too long on this post and wish to respect your time. So I will tell you next why the Gospel matters and what its implications are on all of humanity.
It is easy to be intimidated by the message of the Bible and the Christian faith. It is also easy to point a finger at people who have portrayed it inaccurately and question the validity of God because of it. The Gospel has been used to bully, control, manipulate, murder, and shame people for all of time, even before Jesus came and the pharisees were the religious leaders in Judaism. One of Satan’s favorite things to do is try and discredit Christ by misleading people who profess His name as their truth. And if I have accomplished anything today, let it be clear that there is no excuse to label entire religions based off of the misuse of a few. Christianity is not alone in this struggle and it just means we have to dig deeper to understand for ourselves. I encourage you to be thorough in all that you consider whether it be topics of debate, the truth of current events, or your religious beliefs.
Ultimately, Jesus wants a direct relationship with you. That is why He endured everything that He did- to forever destroy the wall that we built between us so that we could know Him intimately for the rest of eternity. People often imagine Hell as a pit of fire and who knows, it might be. But one thing is for certain- it is eternal separation from the loving creator of the universe who knows every sequence of your DNA, every last atom that makes up your being. It is an eternity without the kind of love that would lay its life down just for the small chance that you might accept it. And going without that to me sounds much worse than sitting in eternal flames.
I don’t say that in any way to ignite fear because that is a method I absolutely despise when it comes to evangelism. It is not about a system of punishments and it is not about God looking for any and every opportunity to condemn you. It is about God meeting you exactly where you are as you are, sitting in every low and high point with you, giving you life more fully than you could ever create on your own. We are not omnipresent beings and have no knowledge beyond our extremely microscopic perspectives and existence. We will lead ourselves into destruction 10 times out of 10 because we are just too small to know any better. And accepting Jesus doesn’t mean we get exclusive access to the secrets of the universe or that we are above making mistakes- it simply means that we have discovered the ultimate and only freedom that is placing our faith in one much greater than us. In the one who knows what will bring us joy and what will bring us sorrow, what will set us free and what will bind us in chains. In one that will guide us to abundance and multiply our faithfulness far beyond what we will ever witness for ourselves.
If this has stirred any curiosity in you or you would like to discuss further, I encourage you to message me. I also encourage you to get your hands on a copy of The Cast for Christ. In fact, let me buy it for you. Message me privately and I will make it happen. I love you all and hope that I have not said anything that is harmful or confusing today. I am excited for the next five weeks and pray that these blogs will help to establish or refresh your foundation in faith.
Until next Sunday,
-Lexi Cummings
