The Gospel IS Powerful

2 Corinthians 5:18-21

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling[d] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

IMPORTANT NOTE See the past two day’s devotionals or this one will be confusing (both are in your email or on our website, takes 5 minutes total to read both)

The last reason, from this passage at least, that we struggle and fail to share the Gospel, is because we miss the beauty of the message.

When was the last time you paused and reflected on what Jesus has done for you? You who was unworthy, who was actively rebelling against God, who hurt others and yourself with your sin. Your trespasses were many, uncountable even if you tried to make a list.

But God made Jesus, who WAS worthy, who walked in complete and perfect obedience, who healed and loved others in every single moment of His life, the one who deserved life. God made Him to BE sin, for you, for me. He made Jesus DIE, so we could live.

That’s why every time I take the Lord’s Supper I tear up, if I don’t actually cry. Because when I eat that stale little cracker and drink a little bit of grape juice, in my mind all I can think about was that I didn’t deserve the salvation I received, and Jesus loved me so much He was willing to die for one who hated Him by my life choices.

Here’s our issue. If we don’t reflect on the Gospel often, if we don’t think about what Jesus has done for us, it becomes stale just like the little cracker we eat. It loses its emotional and spiritual WEIGHT that drives us to action.

How much harder is it to share a message you don’t feel has power or the ability to change a life? Because none of us would say with our words we think the gospel is powerless, but then why aren’t we sharing about it with others?

We can’t claim the power of the Gospel and then with our lives reveal that we don’t actually think it has much power at all.

I can’t think of a nicer way to end this devotional so I’ll leave you with this.

Reflect on what Jesus has done for you, daily, hourly, as often as you need to. Remember the all-consuming, transforming power of the message that you say has changed your life. Then see how much easier it is to tell others.

Right Worldivew

2 Corinthians 5:14-17

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[c] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

IMPORTANT NOTE See yesterday’s devotional or this one will be confusing (is also in your email or on our website, a quick read I promise)

Another reason we fail to share the gospel is because even if we’ve started to let Jesus change our lives, we are still struggling to accept how He teaches us to view the world.

We still want to see the world as flesh and bone only. Especially in our culture here in modern America, any view of the supernatural is mostly dead and gone. There is some interest in spirituality among the youngest generations, but for most Americans, we fundamentally think about the world as a physical one.

What we can see, what we can touch, hear, smell, taste, etc. Things we can rationalize and explain. The modern American worldview is largely built on three philosophical pillars, called rationalism, experientialism, and empiricism. Stick with me I promise this has a point.

Rationalism = life and truth is primarily based on what can be logiced and reasoned

Empiricism = life and truth is primarily based on what can be explained and proven with data and sensory experiences

Experientialism (one of our more recent additions here in America) = there is no pure external source of truth, but rather each person’s experience is a kind of truth in and of itself

Here is the first problem. Not a single one of these makes any room for the supernatural, any room for a belief on its own (it needs reasoning, evidence, or experience to justify itself), or any room for God, because all three rely on US to figure things out and understand things.

Here is the second problem, you might think you are immune to all three of these, but in reality every single one of us has grown up in a culture primarily shaped by these three approaches to understanding life (yes all of us, of any age reading this). And you cannot live among and in something without being affected by it.

So the answer is not to pretend like we can ignore the effects these views have had on our view of life, truth, and the world. Instead, it is to actively retrain ourselves with the actual pure source of truth found in God’s Word.

But how does this affect sharing the gospel?

Because if there is no one source of actual truth, why would we challenge what other people believe to be true based on their experience?

Because if we are limited to what we as humans can understand, then it makes no sense to give our lives in service to a God we cannot see or “prove” with a science experiment.

Because if the world is only what we can see, then there aren’t billions of people who are walking around dead with no relationship with Jesus.

So we must reorient our worldview to match that of our Lord and Savior Jesus. Who saw other people not as they physically looked, but as those made in the image of God, worthy of respect and dignity merely because of that. But who also saw people as spiritually dead and doomed, without hearing the message that He brought.

Wrong Priorities

2 Corinthians 5:11-13

11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

This past Sunday, we looked at 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul gives us the reason we live changed lives that are focused on pleasing God instead of anything else. Those two reasons being, in painfully shortened terms, the hope we have of eternity with God in perfected bodies, and the fear of the Lord that comes from knowing we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ when we die or He comes back.

Paul continues in verse 11-21 giving us the MOST important job of the person who has been changed by Jesus…

GO TELL OTHERS what has happened to you and how Jesus can do the same thing in their lives. Every single believer is called and equipped to carry this “word of reconciliation” with them to their homes, neighborhoods, families, schools, workplaces, everywhere they go. It is simply the most basic job of the Christ follower, to tell others about Jesus with changed lives and with changed words.

So why do we, the church, fail to do this? Why do we struggle so much to share the gospel when it is THE most important task given to us? I didn’t get much time on Sunday to cover this, so our devos for the next few days will cover some reasons from this passage.

Important disclaimer: None of these reasons give us an exemption, none are a valid excuse from the ministry of reconciliation, but maybe if we are aware of the struggle within us we can more successfully let the Holy Spirit change us and move us towards obedience despite these fears and struggles.

First struggle, we take pride in the wrong things, we prioritize the wrong things.

It’s really hard to share the gospel when we are more concerned with what the lost people in our lives think than what God thinks. When we are more concerned about pleasing them and not upsetting them than we are with pleasing God.

When we take pride in our relationships, in our wealth, in our status, instead of in what God has done in us, it becomes infinitely harder to share the gospel. When we take any of the good things God has given us and place them above Him, we move down the task of sharing the gospel on our priority list.

Here is the hard question today, could verse 13 be used to describe you? Does your life after Christ look so different and so changed that others would or do look at you and say “why do you live that way, that seems like a crazy choice to me”? Or is your life pretty much the same as the lost people around you?

This doesn’t mean we should go be insane people, selling all our possessions, or refusing to have jobs, by no means. What it does mean is if our following of Christ NEVER causes friction with the lost people and the lost world around us, maybe we aren’t as committed to Jesus as we thought.

One of the most common ways this shows itself is if our life is mostly devoid of sharing our faith and the gospel with others. Because it is scary, and intimidating, and outside of our comfort zone, to tell other people they have a problem and need to trust in Jesus to save them. But if we are faithful to share, we know our God is faithful to work, and if people respond to that message, it will SAVE their LIFE. That is worth the costs that may come with the ministry of reconciliation, if our priorities are in the right order, if we take pride in the right things.

The Starting line for Prayer

The starting line for prayer is knowing God. Actually, Tyler Stanton phrases it differently: discovering the Father’s love. “The most important discovery you will ever make is the Father’s love, and it’s just that — a discovery.”

Do you know that God loves you and likes you?
Do you believe that God loves you and likes you?

Many of us assume that God exists, but we struggle to believe that the all-powerful and all-knowing God cares about us (especially when we fail Him so often).

The Bible is the story of how much God loves and likes you. From the beginning, every man, woman, and child has rebelled against God, and at every instance God has continued to seek relationship with those who have run off. This comes to a climax at the cross of Jesus, when our Savior willingly endures the punishment we deserve so that we can be accepted by God!

Reflect on this paragraph today:

“I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you are loved — loved right now without qualification or restriction, loved unconditionally for who you are, loved in a way you can’t lose. The bad news is that you find it very hard to believe that and even harder to experience it. Your instinct is, and will forever be, to try to drum up your own lovableness, to become lovable in some way you can define and control, to try to become in your own eyes what you already are in God’s. The good news is called grace; the bad news is called sin.”

— Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Stanton, p. 77.

Striving toward God

Over the last week, I have been reading the book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools and wanted to use the devotions this week to share some things I have learned from it. (I highly suggest you grab a copy of this book and read it on your own!)

Prayer has always been a spiritual discipline I struggle with. I am an impatient fixer, which makes prayer hard. I would rather get to work than wait for God. I quickly assume being productive is more fruitful than prayer.

In addition to that, I struggle to slow down and create space to pray. If I am honest, I spend most of my day ignoring God completely as I focus on the urgent and important things in life.

Prayer is hard for me (and I assume for many of you too). I bet if you were honest, you wish you prayed more, were better at prayer, and felt confident you were doing it right. I bet you battle the thoughts in your head that prayer is a waste of time, a skill you don’t have, or something that is not going to change anything anyway.

Let me offer some words from the book that have helped me in my journey of prayer over the last few weeks:

“By praying we learn to pray.” — Richard Foster

The only way to get better is to practice. Just like with golf, sewing, or reading, the best way to improve is to practice. Sure, reading books, watching YouTube videos, or talking about it may help some, but eventually you need to swing the club, thread the needle, or make time to read. Prayer is the same. We grow our muscle of prayer by praying!

“If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying.” - Thomas Merton

Did you agree that you wish you prayed more? Well, start praying more. I am confident that if you pray more today, you will think about prayer more tomorrow (and hopefully actually pray more too). A life of prayer is created by days of praying more!

“Pray as you can, and don’t try to pray as you can’t.” - Dom John Chapman

We all compare ourselves to others and assume we come up short. That is awesome if someone can pray for an hour straight. I am not sure I can. But I can pray for 5 minutes straight. Pray as you can, not as you can’t. Don’t set goals you will fail. Set goals you can achieve and adjust as you go.

Find the ways you can pray, then pray in those ways.
Find the places you can pray, then pray in those places.
Find the times you can pray, then pray at those times.

“Before your head hits the pillow tonight, spend 5 intentional minutes praying.”