The One Thing You Need Every Day
When guilt surrounds your heart with darkness, weighing it down with an unbearable load, you need the gospel. When failure eats away at the core of who you are, you need the gospel. When you are slowly dying under the disapproval of others, you need the gospel.
When every ball you have in the air comes crashing down and shatters at your feet, you need the gospel. When you forget that your expectations of yourself are too high and too low all at the same time, you need the gospel. When the enemy whispers dark deceit into your ears, “You are a failure. You will never get it together. You are useless,” you need the gospel.
When you’re caught up in the bells and whistles of the culture and you forget the state of your heart, you need the gospel. When the lines of celebrating success and the lure of pride blur into each other, you need the gospel.
When you feel like you got this life thing figured out, with all your boxes checked and all your beats unmissed, you need the gospel. When you secretly believe you’re at least not as bad as her, you need the gospel. When you think you’re doing OK, you need the gospel.
We need the gospel. Everyday. All day. Every moment.
To remind us who we are and whose we are and who we’re not. To remind us who actually defines us and who doesn’t. To remind us where our strength comes from. To remind us of our heart’s deepest, most tender need. To remind us we’re forgiven, beloved, and free. To remind us that without the vigorous love and insurmountable power of Jesus, hope does not exist.
The gospel is not just the entryway to the path of salvation. It is the map of our salvation. If we fail to gaze upon it every day, we will forget on which path our feet tread. We may wander off the path, get stuck in the thick mud of deceit, wade in the pool of our own pride.
For the sake of our souls, we must preach the gospel to ourselves and even our Enemy every day. As Micah spoke the gospel into his heart before it even took place, so must we speak the gospel to our own hearts.
"Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my cause and executes judgement for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon His vindication."
Micah 7:8-9
We no longer bear the indignation of the Lord because He already has redeemed us in Christ. Micah looked forward to the Messiah-to the day when God would plead his cause. But, we already have Him. The cross is our vindication-Jesus already plead and is pleading on our behalf if we believe in Him. He's already shed His blood; He already took our judgement on Himself at a costly price.
The truth that we are redeemed by Christ's blood alone gives us real hope in the darkness of shame. It is not the manufactured hope of trying harder. We must take sin seriously, but we need not dwell in guilt. God desires for us to dwell daily in redemption instead.
Just as our soul needs to hear the truth of the gospel daily, so does our Great Accuser, Satan. When faced with the gospel, his lies of guilt, shame, and pride hold no power over us.
Satan cannot take away our salvation, so he will do all he can to steal away our joy in Christ. He cannot sever us from Christ, so he plots daily to make us feel severed from Christ. His oldest trick is to come alongside our guilt and tell us we're hopeless, to mock our fallenness, and tell us we're worthless. He is a liar.
“So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”
-Martin Luther
Dear ones, let us fight off the daily lies that threaten to pierce our hearts with the invincible truth of the gospel:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:4-9
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