Heart to Heart (May 2010) ~ The Simplicity Of The Gospel – Part 1

THE SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL

I remember getting a Rubik’s Cube years ago when they first came out.  It looked great in the package, all the little colored squares happily grouped together to form six different solid colors, one on each side of the cube.  It looked simple enough … that is, until I got my hands on it.  A few twists and turns and I had ruined its simple color harmony.  The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got.

For too many people this seems to describe life.  Every twist, every turn, every choiceand decision to try and fix one thing, just messes up something else … it all seems so complicated!  Even as christians we can complicate things.  Sometimes we have opted trying to live by the law or religious self-help techniques, rather than the true gospel.  This puts our spiritual health in our own hands.  We have made our relationship with Jesus more about rules, regulations and our own performance, than about His grace, His love and the reality of the cross.  We try to twist, turn and shuffle things to make everything better.  In 2 Corinthians 11:3 it says, “I am afraid that, as the snake fooled Eve with his bag of tricks, your sensibilities too might somehow be corrupted, losing their Christ-oriented simplicity and purity.”  (The Unvarnished New Testament)

The simplicity [single focus] of the gospel is found in a person – Jesus!  The solution is not just better programs, or bigger buildings or having things to entertain the saints – these may draw a few crowds, but they don’t change lives … these things can find a proper place in Christ, but apart from Him they only bring clutter.    May our hearts be truly captured and captivated by Him alone.  We as christians must allow the Holy Spirit to bring our hearts back to the simplicity of the gospel.  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.  I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is: then Jesus and what he did – Jesus crucified  (The Message)

I was made aware of this quote recently – “The truly amazing thing about early christian preaching is that it did not proclaim religious duties or moral standards, or even a reforming program, but a person: on Jesus who was crucified and who the christians knew to be alive.” (Michael Green in The Lion Handbook to the Bible)  -  . . . well said!  May we let our life be defined by Jesus alone, and what He accomplished through His sacrifice on the cross and His triumphant resurrection.  We can truly rest when we entrust all into His hands.

Love in Christ,

Pastor David Hughes