Leadership Thought: The Gospel Is A Lot Older Than You Think.

Dear Friends,

What is the Gospel? It is the message of the good news of our salvation. It is the Good News of truth offered to mankind by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.  But this Gospel, or Good News was proclaimed long before the cross, and even before the Law was given. In fact, it was given 430 years before Moses, and it goes all the way back to Abraham.

“Consider Abraham. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: All nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:6-9).

Abraham was not doing anything to try and impress God. He just believed God and God declared Him righteous, (made right with God). If you and I possess faith in God then we are linked all the way back to Abraham who was the Father of our faith.

Like Abraham we cannot take any credit for our standing before God, for our salvation has nothing to do with what we have done, for perish the thought that we would think we could ever do anything to justify the gift of God’s grace.

God’s gift of salvation can never be earned by anything we do. The acrostic says it all. Grace is "God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense."

The Bible is clear that we have nothing to do with our salvation. God saved you the moment you believed, nothing more and nothing less. “You were saved by His grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT).

Salvation is by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone.

The root of salvation is our faith. The fruit of salvation is our works. There can never be fruit without the root, so don’t mix them up. Our salvation is not a combination of our faith and our works, but it is simply the product of a faith that works. 

Our works are important, and God has even prepared them before hand for us to do ( See Ephesians 2:10),  but they are the consequence of our salvation but never the cause of our salvation.

We are saved through grace by faith. Nothing more or nothing less. 

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom