2 posts tagged “gospel”

(Psalm 96)

2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.

I never did fully agree with Assisi's famous quote: "Preach the gospel, and use words if necessary." - mainly because it gives me the impression that Assisi thinks words aren't necessary most of the time. But they are. Sure, words are empty if you don't live the gospel out, at the same time I think I personally can tend to overemphasize living out the gospel, so much so that I never obey the passage.

Do I really tell of his salvation from day to day - simply because God is worth it?

On Saturday, the pastor I talked about in my last post from the mission team taught on grace.

He basically summarized grace by comparing it to mercy and justice - it wasn't a completely new concept to me, I had heard it shared in that way before somewhere (can't remember where though). Basically the idea is:

Justice is receiving exactly what you deserve - no more, no less

Mercy is receiving less (punishment) than you deserve.

Grace is receiving favor when you realize you deserve justice and can only barely hope for mercy.

The perfect picture of this is of course the Prodigal Son: the son realizes he justly deserves separation from his father, but hopes maybe his father will show enough mercy to at least let him be a servant and stay in his barn or something.

But the Father shows grace: He runs to meet the son, hugs him, kisses him, interrupts him in the middle of his repentance speech, gives him an expensive ring, the best clothes, and throws a huge party for him.

Christ paid the full price of our sins (because of the perfect justice of God). When we accept Christ, God not only completely erases our debt (out of mercy), but He also creates us anew, gives us His Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing even more to come, and gives us many, many promises - out of grace.

Thank God for (frikkin') amazing Grace.