This past weekend we celebrated the greatest weekend in the history of the world—the weekend that Jesus Christ gave His life for us and paid the price for our sins on the cross and then rose victoriously from the grave!  We had a great time celebrating Christ’s death at our special “Good Friday” service at 8:45.  Then we celebrated at our 10:30 service Christ’s victory over the grave and the power of sin and death.  It was such a joy to praise our Savior and celebrate with everyone in attendance.

We at South Baptist Church love Easter, celebrating and remembering what Jesus did for us that weekend over two thousand years ago.  However, if you attend any of our services regularly, you know that we also love celebrating Christ’s work and the Gospel every single week!

Unfortunately, for most of my life I viewed the message of the Gospel as something that only people who were far from God needed to hear.  Whenever I’d hear the Gospel message I would think to myself “I’ve already placed my faith and trust in Jesus.  I already know this.  Teach me something new!”  Over the past 5 years or so, God has shown me that the Gospel isn’t just for my eternal life in heaven—it’s for every moment of every single day.  It’s not something I need to hear just once.  It’s something I need to be reminded of and rehearse every single day of my life.

Recently, I started reading a fantastic book that helps me rehearse and recite how the Gospel impacts my life. 

(If you know me at all, you know that reading is not one of my passions.  In fact, throughout most of my life I found myself doing whatever I could to avoid reading.  So when I say this book is fantastic, I mean it’s fantastic!)

The book is entitled A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent (2008).  I’d like to share an excerpt that I read the other day that really stood out to me in light of our services this past Easter weekend.  This section is labeled “All Things Crucified”.

The gospel is not simply the story of “Christ, and Him crucified”; it is also the story of my own crucifixion.  For the Bible tells me that I, too, was crucified on Christ’s cross.  My old self was slain there, and my love affair with the world was crucified there too.  The cross is also the place where I crucify my flesh and all its sinful desires.  Truly, Christ’s death and my death are so intertwined as to be inseparable.

God is committed to my dying every day, and He calls me to that same commitment.  He insists that every hour be my dying hour, and He wants my death on the cross to be as central to my own life story as is Christ’s death to the gospel story.  “Let this same attitude be in you,” He says, “which was also in Christ Jesus…who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”

Crucifixion hurts.  In fact, its heart-wrenching brutality can numb the senses.  It is a gasping and bloody affair, and there is nothing nice, pretty, or easy about it.  It is not merely death, but excruciating death.

Nevertheless, I must set my face like a flint toward the cross and embrace this crucifixion in everything I do.  I should expect every day to encounter circumstantial evidence of God’s commitment to my dying; and I must seize upon every God-given opportunity to be conformed more fully to Christ’s death, no matter the pain involved.

When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die.  When called to do something I don’t want to do, I must die.  When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die.  When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die.  When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die.  When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die.  When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die.  When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die.  When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.

“Not My will, but Yours be done,” Christ trustingly prayed on the eve of His crucifixion; and preaching His story to myself each day puts me in a frame of mind to trust God and embrace the cross of my own dying also.

Let’s preach Christ’s death and the Gospel to ourselves each day.  It’s not just to punch our ticket to heaven; it’s for our every moment.

– PB