I grew up going to church every Sunday, I heard the Gospel and the teaching of God's word every week. I grew up thinking that to be right with God I had to read my Bible and pray. Throughout my childhood and teen years I felt bad that I failed at this a lot. To me Christianity was that, just doing what God commanded and talking to others about Him...how much was I missing, how confused and mistaken I was. However, 13 yrs. ago when I was going through a very painful season of life God in His mercy and grace revealed to me the riches of His Gospel and for the first time I understood why He died and rose again. I understood my condition before knowing Him and my condition as a now daughter of the God of the Universe who loved his children so much that He sent His one and only Son to die to pay the punishment we deserved so that we didn't have to die but we could enjoy His gift of knowing and enjoying Him today and forever. Yes, we deserved punishment because we have all sinned. If God didn't punish sin he wouldn't be just. He is a just God but he is also love. He is the definition of love and so that is why He sacrificed His son to die on our behalf. He is not only loving and just but he is also powerful, the most powerful being in the universe and evidence of this is how he raised His son Jesus from death to be with Him now. Yes, Jesus is the greatest news you and I will ever hear. Jesus, the perfect Son of God who is one with Him and the Holy Spirit. He lived a perfect life on behalf of us human beings who can never live perfectly [2 Cor. 5:20–21]. He died in obedience to the Father so that we don't have to die to pay for our sins. And that is why I said on a previous post that He has suffered so much more than we could ever suffer. He bore all the sins of all the people on earth. Him being holy and perfect didn't have to die the death of the cursed but He did, for the love of us, His people, to saves us from God's holy wrath and from ourselves who could never save ourselves.
So, how rich is this!! I need to remind myself of this amazing love story every day. I need the Gospel every day. Now I understand that I don't have to do, and read my Bible and pray so that God will love me or accept me but I live in full acceptance of my loving Father who gives me daily joy, hope, and grace. He wakes me up with new mercies and provision for all that I need...how good and amazing is this?!! So when we hear the Greatest news, the Gospel, God calls us to repent from sin and to live for Him, to embrace this amazing love story and be captivated by Him every day, from now to eternity.
So, now, in Christ, we can live resting in God's grace for us, we can live understanding what a joy it is to read the Bible to understand more and more His awesome character and His words to us, his words of guidance so that we can obey Him and follow His plan. Now we pray but not to be loved but because we are loved and can trust that He hears us and wants to comfort, guide, and show more of Himself to us. Now we can tell others about Him because it is so awesome to just keep it to ourselves. Now we live for Him, because He commands us to live for him and because there is so much joy and freedom in living for Him and not for ourselves.
Thank you Lord, your Good News are the greatest we will ever hear! Your gift is the greatest we could ever receive!
Ephesians 2:1-10
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
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Las mejores noticias que escucharas en tu vida:
Yo crecí yendo a la iglesia todos los domingos, escuchando el Evangelio y la Palabra todas las semanas. Yo crecí pensando que el cristianismo era leer la Biblia y orar y me sentia mal que siempre fallaba en hacer estas cosas. ¡De cuanto me estaba perdiendo! Pero cuando tenia 18 años estaba pasando por un tiempo muy doloroso en mi vida, Dios en su gracia y misericordia me revelo su Evangelio y entonces entendí la razón por la cual el murió y resucito. Entendí mi condición antes de conocerle y mi condición como ya una hija de Dios por medio del sacrificio de Cristo. Entendí su gran amor por los pecadores mostrado en dar a su Unico y Amado hijo Jesus para pagar el castigo que yo tenia que pagar por mi pecado [2 Cor. 5:20–21]. Dios siendo perfecto y Santo es también Justo y muestra de su justicia es el castigar el pecado de la humanidad. Pero el envió a Su hijo para que sobre El cayera el pecado del mundo y por eso dije en mi post anterior que Cristo ha sufrido mucho mas de lo que nosotros podremos sufrir. El sufrió un castigo siendo El perfecto y santo. Vivio una vida haciendo la voluntad de Su Padre y murió en obediencia para darnos acceso al Padre y para que pudiéramos disfrutar de Su esperanza, gozo, amor, presencia, y poder. ¡Que maravillosas noticias son esas, las mejores que escucharemos en toda nuestra vida! Ahora en Cristo no tenemos que leer la Biblia y orar por obligación a un rito y para que Dios nos ame y nos acepte. Si estamos en Cristo y hemos entendido la hermosura de su Evangelio encontramos gozo en conocerle mas y mas atreves de Su palabra y conocer su carácter y su amor para nosotros por medio de ella. Nos podemos ahora deleitar en hacer su voluntad y en seguir su plan revelado por medio de su palabra. Ahora en El sentimos la libertad de obedecerle y encontramos felicidad en obedecerle y en vivir para El mucho mas que vivir para nosotros mismos. Estas son las mejores noticias que podemos escuchar. Que el Dios perfecto y Santo nos acepta y nos ama no por lo que hacemos o dejamos de hacer, nos ama no de acuerdo a nuestra conducta sino de acuerdo a su gracia por lo que Cristo hizo por nosotros y que ahora podemos arrepentirnos de nuestro pecado, venir a El, y vivir con El y para El hoy y para siempre...que Buen Dios el que tenemos. No se contradice, no nos deja solos si no que nos adopta, nos limpia, nos ama y nos transforma para Su gloria y para nuestro bien.
Efesios 2:1-10
Y El os dio vida a vosotros, que estabais[a] muertos en[b] vuestros delitos y pecados,2 en los cuales anduvisteis en otro tiempo según la corriente[c] de este mundo, conforme al príncipe de la potestad del aire, el espíritu que ahora opera en los hijos de desobediencia,3 entre los cuales también todos nosotros en otro tiempo vivíamos en las pasiones de nuestra carne, satisfaciendo[d] los deseos de la carne y de la mente[e], y éramos por naturaleza hijos de ira, lo mismo que los demás. 4 Pero Dios, que es rico en misericordia, por causa del[f] gran amor con que nos amó, 5 aun cuando estábamos muertos en[g]nuestros delitos, nos dio vida juntamente con Cristo (por gracia habéis sido salvados), 6 y con El nos resucitó, y con El nos sentó en los lugares celestiales en Cristo Jesús, 7 a fin de poder mostrar en los siglos venideros las sobreabundantes riquezas de su gracia por subondad para con nosotros en Cristo Jesús. 8 Porque por gracia habéis sido salvados por medio de la fe, y esto no de vosotros, sino que es don de Dios; 9 no por[h] obras, para que nadie se gloríe. 10 Porque somos hechura suya, creados en Cristo Jesús para hacerbuenas obras, las cuales Dios preparó de antemano para que anduviéramos en ellas.
John 3:16
Porque de tal manera amó Dios al mundo, que dio a su Hijo unigénito[a], para que todo aquel que cree en El, no se pierda, mas tenga vida eterna.
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