Take a minute and think: who do you know that needs the gospel?
The first answer that usually comes to mind is someone who is not following Christ. While that is certainly true, the gospel is not just for unbelievers — Christians need the gospel too. We do need the gospel for our salvation. Yet, we also need the gospel for every minute of our lives after our salvation. The gospel is for all of life. It saves us, sanctifies us (helps us grow), and sustains us. We never outgrow our need for it! But, it can be hard for us to see how the gospel applies to the everyday movements of our lives.
Three years ago, I (Heather) spent the month of May gathering with women from my church each Wednesday morning to walk through The Daily Grace Company’s Preaching the Gospel to Yourself study. Because we are so prone to forget these important truths, we recently completed the study again this May. In fact, we are putting it into our curriculum every three years on a rotation now.
If you are unsure what the term “gospel” means, check out our blog post, What Is the Gospel? Our group met for four weeks, working through the workbook together and discussing how the gospel applies to many areas of our lives— from how we spend our time on social media, how it applies to friendships, how it helps us endure in suffering and so much more. The conversations were eye-opening, encouraging, and full of meaningful discussion.
This would be a wonderful study for a group of teens, new believers, or anyone wanting to learn how to apply the gospel to daily life. Below are some of our favorite takeaways or quotes…
- #1– “When we understand the beauty of the gospel, no area of our lives can go untouched by the hope and life that it brings.”
- #2– “Jesus gives us everything we need for life and godliness–this is the gospel. He is all we need! We need to know Him, superficially, but intimately. We need to immerse ourselves in the gospel, in the knowledge of Him, and allow it transform our everyday lives.”
- #3 – “The gospel offers hope for our restless souls. Our Savior invites us to come and lay our burdens on Him, because He has already paid the price for them all. He invites us to come to His Word to hear the gospel every day. He invites us to come to Him in prayer with all of our worries and fears, knowing our Father in heaven cares for us.”
- #4 – “As the body of Christ, we are called to put the gospel on display in our lives. God has given marriage as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church, and it is Christ’s love for the church that is to be a model for our marriage relationships.”
- #5- “As biblical hospitality seeks to meet the physical and spiritual needs of others, we understand that the greatest need of every single person is the need of Christ. This is why the gospel is what informs the practical implications of biblical hospitality-what can I do to serve someone else to show them the love, hope, and glorious reality of Christ?”
- #6 – “The gospel is not just that Christ saves individuals, but that He redeems the Church, sanctifying her so that she can be presented to Him as His pure and holy bride..the good news of our union with Christ also means union with all those who are united to Him-His body, His bride, His church.”
- #7 – “We are so quick to approach friendship selfishly, focusing on how we can benefit from the relationship, but we are called to think first about how we can serve our friends, counting their needs as more important than our own. We practice this kind of self-sacrifice love because it is what Christ did for us.”
- #8 – “This is what stewards do. They tell the owners exactly how they managed the resources entrusted to them. This is why it’s imperative that we have a biblical perspective on our possessions and live in line with the principles given to use in the Word of God.”
Which quote is your favorite?