Good News

The gospel is not something that I had ever put into words until last week, when I was talking to a room full of Brazilian school children. We make things so hard in the States, with all of our theology and rules and legalism. The gospel comes down to Paul's words in 1 Timothy 1:15 -- "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst." No more, no less. Jesus gave us two commandments, love God and love your neighbor, not the 3 books of the OT that are devoted to laws that include mold and mildew. We make it so hard, with all the rules that we impose on ourselves, but the truth is, we can't even keep the standards we set for ourselves -- what makes us think we can keep God's standards? We can't. That's the beauty of the gospel. God took something that we couldn't do on our own and He did it for us.