The Power of The Gospel

I've talked on here before about me helping leading a group of women through our Women's Development program at our church.  Part of this program involves digging deep into Romans.  Y'all I cannot tell you how good this has been for me.  It is changing me.  I'm learning something new every day.  God is showing me truth from his word that pierces my heart.

Over the last few years I started having lots of questions about sharing my testimony, my story.  It's super personal and not something that I want to share with any stranger on the street.  I don't even really want to share it with people that aren't strangers.  It's not that I don't think that what God has done in my life is a miracle.  I know it is.  He has worked so many miracles in my life to pull me out of sin and to show his glory. But, a lot of times when I hear someones testimony their sin gets a lot of the glory and God is like an after thought.  I don't want that.  I want people to hear about God.  Not me.  Not my sin.

I especially struggled with this a lot last summer when I was in London.  I wanted to share Jesus and his life changing message with all the women we met.  I wanted them to know of Jesus' saving love.  But how could I do that if I didn't share every dark detail of my life?

The answer was simple.  The Gospel.  Romans 1:16 and 17 tells us "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith." That's it.  The gospel is the power of God for salvation.  Not my story, not my words. God's story.  His words.  His plan for the salvation of his children.

I wish I could do a better job of expressing to you the weight that took from my shoulders.  I don't need to tell someone my story.  I need to tell them the story of Jesus.  That he was God in the flesh on earth.  A man who lived a completely sinless life.  And he died. And three days later was raised from the dead so that we could be saved.  He died to redeem us.  He rescued us.  That's the good news of the gospel.  That's the truth of the gospel.  And that is what changes lives.  It is what changed my life and it's what will change every life of those that believe.

Now, I want to be clear that I don't mean to say that I will never tell my story.  I've told bits and pieces of it to different people as the circumstances called for it, but I try to always let God get the glory.  It is, after all, his story in my life.  I just believe that the first story, of most importance, that any one needs to hear is the story of Christ.