Do Not Neglect to Articulate the Gospel
Christian martyrs in the first century were not persecuted and killed because they were “kind” or “giving” people. They were not murdered for feeding the poor or loving others, although those are things the church did. They were executed because of their belief and proclamation that the God-Man, Jesus Christ, actually – in real time and space – died on the cross in Jerusalem under the Roman government, and then miraculously rose from the dead! They gave their lives away, standing on the premise that God had come to earth in Jesus, and paid for our sins by conquering death. They died standing on the truth that, because Christ had died on their behalf and risen from the dead, that they would rise from death too!
I ask you, what is the message of the church? Yes, we are to do good as a result of what Jesus has done for us. We are to love others and thereby, demonstrate our love for God. However, good works alone do not save! The heartbeat of the Gospel, and what gets the devil really ramped up is when the people of God proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus as our actual victory over sin and death!
Has Jesus cleansed you by His blood? Is His Spirit alive in you? Proclaim that! And, by all means, do what He calls you to do! But do not neglect to articulate the Gospel – the divine rescue of humans by the blood of the Son of God!
– Shelli Prindle
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)