“In order to grow in Christlikeness, we’ve got to intentionally apply the gospel to everything we are and everything we long to do. We’re not to sever our obedience from [Christ’s] perfect sinlessness nor disconnect our mortal life from his resurrected life. We’ve got to understand ourselves in the light of our new identity, seeing ourselves as we truly are: sinful and flawed, loved and welcomed. Only these gospel realities have enough power to engender faith, kill idolatry, produce character change, and motivate faithful obedience.”
I remember hearing years ago from pastor and teacher Jack Miller, that, as Christians, we need to "preach the gospel" to our hearts and lives every day. We don't graduate from the gospel. The gospel isn't merely some set of propositional truths that we affirm in order to become Christians and then after that it carries no relevance. Rather the love and grace of the gospel is the reality that we must live in and let permeate us every day.
If you are anything like me, I have short term memory loss. I easily forget. And I can forget at times that I am loves and fully accepted by Jesus. How is that possible? It becomes possible when I allow the stresses., failures and pressures of the day to overshadow Christ's love for me. Or I choose to listen to the voices of the world and the enemy define me by their lies. That is why I must double down on the gospel. Through the Word, I need to press down into my heart that I am accepted and loved by Jesus, and that no circumstance, feeling or failure can change that fact.
Galatians 4:4-7 "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God."
As our medical teams come together and go into places such as Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Niger or serve throughout Atlanta, it will be imperative that we preach the gospel to our hearts and to each other every day. As followers of Christ, we are dearly and deeply loved children of the King, and we must live and serve out of that truth.