The Telephone Game — Gossip vs. Gospel - Friday
Today’s Verse
Romans 6:23
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NIV)
Ever since the Fall in Genesis 3, humans have struggled with our sin. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If you grew up in church, it can be tempting to let the Gospel feel a little stale, like an old story you hear every time the extended family gets together. But it really is the most radical news we’ve ever received!
I love the art of storytelling. Every story has conflict, and every conflict is ultimately some form of good versus evil. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Although the author of Ecclesiastes might not have been talking about storytelling, he made a point I think all of my literature professors would have agreed with: at the heart of the matter, we struggle with pretty much nothing that hasn’t been struggled with before. C.S. Lewis makes an interesting point in his book Mere Christianity:
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good…. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist. (Book III, Chapter 11)
The more we understand the weight of our sin, the more we comprehend the importance of the Gospel. Jesus loves us and gave Himself up as a payment for our sin, so that we might have eternal life with the Father!
REFLECTION
As you head into the weekend, I encourage you to take some time to pray that the Lord would increase your understanding of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and increase your desire to honor God with your life. And remember that you don’t have to struggle alone! We all need others to come alongside us, and Southland has groups designed to meet you where you are. Check out southland.church/groups.
