The Gospel

The Gospel affects everything. It meets my deepest needs, refutes the most insidious of lies, commands the most respect, catalyzes the strongest action, and enacts the most far-reaching changes.

The Gospel CHANGES me, and is in fact the only thing which can change me or anyone else.

For instance...

I will be content with my body not merely because “God loves me just as I am,” but because Christ died to save my soul, which my body houses. Because the Holy Spirit resides in me, my body is a temple which I should care for with the utmost respect.

I will treat others with beneficence, assuming the best, refusing to use them for selfish gain, because of Christ’s sacrifice—who made Himself nothing, took the nature of a man, was found in human likeness.

I will speak kindly and wholesomely to others, because Christ died to restore communication with God for me, and I will choose to emulate God’s method of speech, which is always redemptive, rather than the world’s. As a member of His Body, His Bride, I will build others up because Christ’s love enables me to.

I will not waste time on frivolous or harmful things, because God has set me apart for Himself, to bring about His purposes and glorious will; and because God has a Kingdom in which I can now invest.

I will do or be all these things because of the Gospel: because of Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross, the Holy Spirit’s redemptive work in me, and God’s redemptive work in a world currently crippled by sin. Only through His enabling, His power, His words, can anything good come about.

Thoughts sparked by reading from:

Fitzpatrick, E. (1999). Love to Eat, Hate to Eat: Breaking the

bondage of destructive eating habits. Eugene, OR:

Harvest House Publishers.

Mahaney, C. (2006). [Weblog] Distorted beauty. GirlTalk.

Retrieved January 23, 2007 from

http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/2006/10/distorted_beaut.html

Tripp, P. D. (2002). Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands:

People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of

Change. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing.

Vincent, M. (2006). The Gospel Primer for Christians.

Riverside, CA: Mission Reprographics.

Whitacre, N. (2005). [Weblog] Beautiful is better?

GirlTalk. Retrieved January 23, 2007 from

http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/2005/06/beautiful_is_be.html