Daily Gospel
It was another morning getting the kids out the door for school. All four of our little humans were ushered through breakfast, clothing changes, teeth brushings, and into the car to get our two older children to school. As you may imagine, it was a somewhat chaotic scene filled with little bodies, their big ideas, and sometimes bigger attitudes.
In the hustle and bustle of numerous transitions and word battles that morning, I found myself feeling, honestly, overwhelmed. I imagine many of you reading this can relate to that feeling. It is a place where things feel more out of control than we would like and perhaps a place where we are tempted to think, feel or behave in a way that is at its root a reflection of our broken nature. Whether it is in moments of parenting, work, family relationships, marriage, or any other human interaction that leads us to a feeling of overwhelmedness or restlessness, we can get to a place where we need a breakthrough, a light to shine in on the darkness of our emotions, attitudes, and behaviors whether they are momentary or lifelong patterns of living.
As Followers of Jesus Christ what we need is a daily Gospel retelling. We need the goodness of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ preached into our hearts and minds and then into living each moment.
For myself, as a wife and stay-at-home mother of four small kids, I need that Gospel message rehearsed so that I can parent my kids well – especially in the moments of age-appropriate doses of defiance as they are rushed through a morning routine – and go into my day interacting with the world around me and whatever the day might bring.
I need the promise:
- of Jesus that I walk in the newness of life as I grow with them through their young years and both the challenges and joys of this season of life (Romans 6:4).
- of the presence of Jesus dwelling with me (John 14:7) and His promise to be with me to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).
- of Jesus that as I learn to abide in Him that I will bear good fruit for His glory and my good (John 15:4-7).
- that He has forgiven me of my sins, that I can confess to Him and know that He is interceding for me (1 John 1:9, Romans 8:34). What we all need is, as Pastor Drew said in his Easter message, is “not a life and church transaction.”
We all need an act of surrender to daily Gospel living.
How do we accomplish this? Pastor Drew Shofner, Senior Pastor at the Church at Severn Run, encouraged us in his Easter message in this way: “Let the resurrection reframe your life. Bring every fearful wound and helpless feeling into the living hope of an undying Savior.” We do this through the meditation of rehearsing a daily Gospel to ourselves! 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
We can trust that, when we repent of our sins and accept Jesus as our Savior, we have been reborn into a new life in Him. He has given us a Helper, our Advocate, the Holy Spirit to help us to grow in this new life in Christ. Part of that power is in the meditation or pondering of the truth: who Jesus is, what He did, and what that means for us in light of His life and redeeming work.
For me, in my moment of being overwhelmed getting out of the door with my kids, it has meant knowing who I am in Christ, that I can grow in my patience, showing grace and mercy in parenting moments of (occasionally extreme) frustration. It has meant:
- being able to acknowledge when I have lost my temper or spoken in an ungentle way and ask them to forgive me because I know I have been loved and forgiven by my Lord and should ask for that forgiveness from others including my kids.
- that I can trust that God is going to offer me innumerable opportunities to grow in sanctification and that it is for my great good and His glory, especially when I am able to humble myself as a servant, even in my parenting moments.
My prayer for myself and all of us as we go into our week after celebrating the resurrection of Jesus is that the good news of the Gospel will be the unstoppable light into the rest of our lives. As Jesus said, …”’I am the Resurrection and the Life.”” John 11:25a
By rehearsing a daily message of the Gospel to ourselves we can move through our lives with Jesus, not just as a person who lived, but with Jesus as being our very life.
KB