Understanding the Gospel

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet
Frederick Buechner

Halloween is "celebrated" this Sunday night. Halloween has become a strange mixture. Our consumer culture now exploits anything that resembles a holiday by marketing goodies, gadgets and anything that can be bought and sold. Halloween is a perfect example. Stores begin early with costumes and candy. Not surprisingly, the darkside of Halloween has grown much much darker. Horror movies that were once extreme now appear comparatively mild with the latest releases. Now the paranormal extremes are the norm for "entertainment". I can't help but recognize a strange hunger. Our fixation with candy provides a good illustration. We hunger for pounds of sugar, even thought deep inside we know it's not healthy. I see much of what occurs on Halloween as a hunger for something spiritual. Spiritual hunger attracts many to the "candy" that the world offers. It is a poor substitute for a relationship with the supernatural holy God. This dilemna is a great place for the Gospel to shine. We are called to bring the Gospel to the dark places. We are light.

Suit Up

In Ephesians 6, Paul provides a descriptive outline of the facts of life for a follower of Christ. We face a battle (Ephesians 6:12). God has provided equipment for the battle (Ephesians 6:13-18). It is our responsibility to put on the equipment and serve God (Ephesians 6:11). Really, we don’t have a choice of whether or not there will be a battle. When we follow Christ, the enemy of our soul will bring schemes against us designed to distract us from our faithfulness to God. Our choice is how well we fight. Will we fight wisely? Writing about the lack of heart and accountability in American Culture, Connors, Smith and Hickman write,
“A nation of observers is not a nation of participants. If you sit on the sidelines watching the game of your life play out before your eyes, you relinquish your ability to affect the outcome…to remedy this darkening malaise, people must abandon the bleacher seats and take to the playing field.”

In order to enter the playing field in the game of life, we need to suit up with the equipment God has provided: Truth, Righteousness, the Gospel, Faith, Salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God and the opportunity to have an audience with God all day through prayer.

The Gospel

Richard Stearns (The Hole in our Gospel) writes,

"I believe that we have reduced the gospel from a dynamic and beautiful symphony of God's love for and in the world to a bare and strident monotone. We have taken this amazing good news form God, originally presented in high definition and Dolby stereo, and reduced it to a grainy, black-and-white, silent movie. In doing so, we have also stripped it of much of its power to change not only the human heart but the world."

Transformational Living

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. (Matthew 5:15)

Whenever days begin to grow shorter I begin to mourn the loss. Shorter days mean more darkness and less daylight and I don’t like it. Light transforms darkness. The words of Jesus remind us of His power to transform. He reminds us that it is a power that He has given to us. Our presence should make a difference in the same way that “a lamp gives light to everyone in the house”. Richard Stearns, President of World Vision, writes

“being a Christian, or follower of Jesus Christ, requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God. It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world…when we committed ourselves to following Christ, we also committed to living our lives in such as way that a watching world would catch a glimpse of God’s character – His live, justice and mercy – through our words, actions and behavior.”