A people of the gospel

A People of the Gospel

I have been thinking a lot lately about the church. We are The body of Christ, His representatives on the planet and the ones that are supposed to be shining His glory to world every day. I want to know what that looks like. I want a taste of it.

As with everything that is real, being THE CHURCH has many layers, levels, and dimensions, but there are places to begin and some foundations are better than others. The one I am the most interested in at the moment is the Gospel. The good news is more than just our entry point into Christianity it IS Christianity. We should be a people profoundly shaped and molded by the realities of the Good News.

Jesus is the one who makes this clear. Remember the parable of the man who owed the king a massive sum of money, and was then forgiven? He walked right out of the presence of the forgiver and persecuted his neighbor for a debt of a very small sum. This is a classic case of NOT being profoundly shaped by the Gospel! The news that without him having to do ANYTHING himself he was now set free from his impossible debt, did nothing to the way he treated another man with in the same situation.

How often do we as Christians do the exact same thing! Let us make no mistake my friends we have been forgiven a debt that we never could have paid ourselves. How do we treat others around us who have accrued a similar load on their backs? Maybe even a debt that they personally owe to us? Do we free them? Do we let them go?

This illustration is only one small dimension of what it looks like to be deeply shaped and changed by the Gospel. There are so many more! He came looking for us, are we looking for them? He chased us down when we ran away, are we doing the same? He bore the price of our failures when we could not, when is the last time you did that for someone? There is still more....

I am not saying that I am doing better than anyone else in this category only that I desperately desire to do better than I have.

Lord help me to see what it means to be a man of the Gospel and our church to be a people of the Gospel. Shape me. Mold me. I am yours amen.