We don't have bragging rights when it comes to our salvation - instead, our goal should be to boast about the goodness of God and the grace we receive as a gift through His Son, Jesus Christ. And in response to that gift, our call is to glorify God in everything we do, shining His light to everyone around us.
The brokenness of our world makes it clear: we need God. But as people who are separated from God by sin, how do we 'get right' with Him? The good news is that God Himself provided everything we need through the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. There's nothing we can do to earn this grace - it's a free gift of God and His righteousness.
We'll never fully understand the gospel until we understand that we're sinners in need of a savior. We don't like to admit it, and we seek credit for the good things we do as if those things will get us closer to God. But the truth is, next to the standard of God's perfection, everyone falls short. Everyone is need of a savior.
The gospel message is good news, but many people have questions about it. Is God's character trustworthy? Is He really faithful in all things? The beauty of the gospel is in its ability to have satisfying answers to tough questions, even the questions asked with bad intentions.
We've all had times when we've done the "right" thing for the wrong reasons. A life transformed by Jesus isn't just about doing the right things. It's a transformation of the heart. If our heart isn't in the work that we do, then we can quickly fall into the trap of hypocrisy.
God's law provides a clear standard to live by, and yet our sin nature means no one will be able to live it out perfectly. Some pride themselves on how well they can "follow the rules," while others try to claim the law is outdated and irrelevant in light of God's grace. So what is the purpose of God's law?
We can all fall easily into the trap of pointing out the wrongdoing of others while completely ignoring our own. When we believe that our obedience to a set of religious rules will somehow give us better standing with God than the people around us, we forget the central message of the gospel: only through the saving grace of Jesus Christ can we be made right with God. The religious and the rebellious both need Jesus.
When our worship turns away from God and goes instead toward the worship of pleasure, our culture's decline is inevitable. The final verses of Romans 1 follow the progression of what happens when a people reject God's design for relationships and make their own desires their primary focus. And even though our culture seems hopelessly lost, we must never lose sight of God's ability to transform lives through the power of Jesus Christ and the hope of the gospel.
God's wrath isn't a comfortable subject, and yet we all have a desire to see evil confronted when it affects us or the people we love. When mankind rejects God's design for life, the consequence is disorder, confusion and the destruction of truth. Everyone needs to make a choice: will we accept God as the authority in our lives, or will we try to make ourselves the authority instead?
The gospel is good, life-changing news for everyone, everywhere - so why don't we share it with more people? In a culture that continues to drift further from biblical truth, we can find ourselves hesitant to have Christ-centered conversations for fear of rejection. How do we remain unashamed of the gospel and stay on mission to share it?
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