Two different posts caught my attention yesterday and helped me to reflect on the wonder of the gospel.  Stop and think about it.  The gospel is truly an amazing message.  Its realities must take over our lives.

The first post is from the blog Pure Church written by Thabiti Anyabwile.  He begins by noting that he are undeserving-

I’m undeserving. Of:
1. The love of God
2. The grace of Christ
3. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit
4. Forgiveness for my wickedness and sin
5. Adoption into the family of God
6. Justification before a just and holy God
7. Union with Christ the blameless and pure
8. Escape from the wrath of God that is coming
9. The grace of preaching the gospel of Christ
10. Having a people, Christ’s people, to care for in the Christian ministry
11. The privilege of looking each day into God’s Word, of either having this as a “job” or the sight and the mental ability to do it
12. Association with Christ by wearing the name “Christian” or participating in baptism and membership in His body, the church
13. Eternal life
14. Seeing Jesus by faith now and by sight when time gives way to eternity
15. The favor of the Lord in the form of my wife
16. The fruit of the womb, three children on loan to us for the glory of God
17. Friends who have loved me enough to teach me, correct me, bear with me, rejoice with me and pray for me

And so much more! So, I am grateful today for all that I have in Christ–more than I can imagine and list on a blog. And I’m thankful, that above all, Christ himself is mine and I am His. Though I’m undeserving. 

The second post is from Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds- there he quotes Luther on how the true beleiver never tires of hearing the gospel-

People don’t earn God’s approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they’ve done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God’s kindness through Christ. There is no other way.

Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long ago. However, they barely understand how important it really is. If it continues to be taught as truth, the Christian church will remain united and pure — free from decay. This truth alone makes and sustains Christianity. You might hear an immature Christian brag about how well he knows that we receive God’s approval through God’s kindness and not because of anything we do to earn it. But if he goes on to say that this is easy to put into practice, then have no doubt he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he probably never will. We can never learn this truth completely or brag that we understand it fully. Learning this truth is an art. We will always remain students of it, and it will always be our teacher.

The people who truly understand that they receive God’s approval by faith and put this into practice don’t brag that they have fully mastered it. Rather, they think of it as a pleasant taste or aroma that they are always pursuing. These people are astonished that they can’t comprehend it as fully as they would like. They hunger and thirst for it. They yearn for it more and more. They never get tired of hearing about this truth.

This entry was posted by Tim Pickard on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.