It's the Gospel Truth

Almost five years ago I experienced some sort of a spiritual renewal one very dark night while wrestling with a functioning addiction to alcohol that was causing all kinds of mayhem to work itself out into my life, poisoning every area.

In an act of radical grace in my rebellion, God rescued his prodigal lamb. For months afterward I asked God what in the world he did to me because I could not figure it out, how I could change like that. Several elder saints in the Lord who visited the farm lovingly counseled me that I had experienced a spiritual awakening. God was answering my prayer; he delivered me. 

Another prayer I prayed to God was that I wanted to know the truth. Through my life I had attended many different denominations, and although they all believed the core doctrines of the Christian faith, they were all across the board on the secondary issues. "I am confused," I prayed, "Please show me the truth." 

Since that day, I have been on a spiritual rollercoaster with many highs and many lows as I've emerged myself into theological lectures and classes, and buried my nose in commentaries and doctrinal treatises, engaging in much passionate canonical discourse. I've deconstructed from false teachings embedded in my belief system, been perplexed as I poured over Arminian free-will arguments, and spent considerable time in the "cage-stage" of Calvinism. 

Theologian Micheal Horton explains, "Whenever someone has invested considerable time and energy, especially on a subject that has altered their lives, passion can boil over into fanaticism." 

Many times I've had to beg the Lord to take away this simmering pride and subdue the monster inside of me clamoring for more knowledge and doctrine so I can win the argument. Another prayer answered as he began to humble me in the midst of the most beautiful thing possible, the only possible thing to replace this angst - the thing angels long to look into. ( 1 Peter 1:12 ) 

The gospel. 

Inside my heart I heard God speak, "When you wanted to know the truth, you meant doctrine, but I meant my Son." 

My pastor once quoted from the pulpit, "Better to be at home with your Bible and not your theology than to be at home with your theology and not your Bible." Isn't that the gospel truth? We must be aware continuously of forcing our theology to fit into the Scriptures. 

Read the text and let it speak for itself. Let the tension remain and meditate on it. The Holy Spirit will guide us. He will teach us Jesus promised. And get into a gospel-centered Bible study with fellow believers. Commit your study always to the Lord in prayer, and he will open your mind to understand it. Pray that we may handle the Word with fear and trembling and rightly divide it. ( Luke 24:35, 2 Timothy 2:15 ) 

This is the best advice I can give. 

Sanctification is the journey, not the destination. I thank God profusely that he has not allowed me to become clogged up and lodged in the theological quagmire I've thankfully passed through, although it has benefited the process greatly. Some things have stuck while others dropped off as I cycled through. 

I realize now that what happened that night was that the gospel of Jesus Christ that had been in my head on an academic level only, had finally made the pilgrimage down into my heart. 

For most of my life if someone had asked me to explain the gospel, I would have embarrassed myself to no end. The elements of it were tucked away in my intellect, but they always came out of my mouth sounding mechanical. The reason is because they were never in my heart. I had never experienced the gospel for myself. I had never tasted that the Lord is good. I had never bitten into the sweet honey of grace, that's for sure. 

Christianity was a religion to me. I had to measure up, follow the rules, so I could be saved. And then there was the ever exhausting task of keeping myself saved. No wonder I was a mess. 

In a recent blog post I made the statement that we need to first tell people the bad news of the gospel before we can share the good news of the gospel with them. I was wrong. Really wrong.

The Bible narrative which is the story of God is not bad then good, it is actually good, then bad, then good again. 

Good, bad, good.   

God made everything good. He said so. Our first parents were given a choice and they sinned in the Garden of Eden when they did not obey God, thinking they knew better. This sin tainted the rest of humankind, that's the bad news: We're born sinners. 

But God had a plan.

God can have mercy on us for one reason: He did not have mercy on his Son. 

Think about that. That's what Jesus has done for us. "....while we were sinners, Christ died for us." ( Romans 5:8 ) That's the gospel. The things that these angelic heavenly beings who dwell in the holiness and presence of God long to look into. 

Do we? 

God made a covenant that terrible day in Eden with Adam and Eve that he had a plan to redeem and restore creation, including his people by sending his Son to bear our iniquity for us, rising from the grave on the third day. Our Redeemer lives. That's the good news. That's the complete gospel. 

If we let the gospel overwhelm our hearts, if we make the gospel truth the thing we meditate upon and not our theology, it will work itself out into every area of our lives and begin to change everything, including our theology. 

It will melt our hearts. 💜

"I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." ( Romans 1:16 ) 

"If I.... understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." ( 1 Corinthians 13 ) 

Nothing satisfies like the Pure Milk of the Word