Tag: Faith

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What We Believe – Our God is Three in One

This is a continuing series based on short papers I wrote for my church’s elder class to prepare for discussions of different doctrinal questions. This week’s prompt: What is your view of the Trinity?

The doctrine of God’s existence as one being in three persons is one of the most controversial and defining doctrines of the faith. It is sensible that discussion of this topic follows an exploration of the nature of Scripture, because it is through a belief in the character of Scripture as God-breathed and therefore infallible and supreme that we must arrive at the conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity is true. 

As with so many doctrines, it was defined in the face of error. It is tempting to linger on these errors in a historical sense, and it is important to understand them because so often people tend to repeat them. There are whole offshoot faiths from Christianity that are founded on denials of various aspects of the Trinity – for example, United Pentacostals who hold to a modalistic view of God, or Jehovah’s Witnesses who insist that Jesus is a mere created being. But it’s important to define what we do believe, rather than just what we do not. 

Looking back at the early discussions in the church that hashed out the doctrine and the way it is stated across denominational lines to this day, we see the priorities of these believers as they examined what the Scriptures say for the sake of clarifying teaching and avoiding error. We see them prioritizing the nature of God, and the distinction between God’s being (or substance, to use the Nicene term) and the persons of the Trinity, who Scripture reveals as unique in role and action, yet utterly united in will and fully bearing the nature of being God.

We see the early church’s recognition that for salvation to be effective, Christ must be fully man and fully God. He must be fully man so that He may share in our existence and bear our suffering and sin upon the cross, and He must be fully God so that He may endure in a way no mere sinful human ever could alone. We see the Father as the one who declares the nature of creation and trajectory of history through His perfect plans. He does not do anything alone, but plays His own unique role in sending forth the Son and blessing His work. He calls all those who will be Christ’s. And we see the Holy Spirit as the one who ministers constantly through and in Christ’s church, to glorify Christ and to be the “Giver of Life” as the Council of Constantinople put it, as He makes possible Christ’s words from John 3 that to be saved, we “must be born again.”

God’s Trinitarian nature is beyond our comprehension in many ways, but that itself is evidence of it being a revelation of God and not a production of man’s own mind. The legion of heresies that the church has contended with through the centuries show what happens when humans attempt to apply their own wisdom to God’s nature. From Sabellius teaching that the persons of the Trinity are little more than masks worn by one being of God, to Arius’ claims that “there was a time that the Son was not” and his theological children in groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to outright polytheists like the Mormons, many times man refuses to be satisfied by trusting to what God says but insists that he has better wisdom. Yet none of them can truly say they believe that Scripture is God’s Word, when they refuse to heed God’s own revelations of Himself. They cannot claim to have true salvation in a Christ who is not who He said He was, in His own words – “I am.” 

To rest in God’s promises we must trust in the words of Deuteronomy 29:29, “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.” We cannot truly reckon as created, mortal, singular beings with the true nature of existence for an eternal, Trinitarian God, but we can trust that He is truthful and trustworthy. We rely on Him to grasp this, and His work and Word calls us to let our doubts and confusion rest on His promises.

Do you have questions or areas where you struggle to understand? Please ask them below or email me if you prefer, our hope here is to bless the body and engage in dialogue.

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My friend Jarod

A week ago Friday I picked my wife up from work, our 3 year old riding in his seat in the back singing and pointing out fire trucks and windmills as we drove across town to to the grocery store. We pulled into a spot and started making a list – after all, the only bigger mistake to make than going grocery shopping without a list, is going while hungry.

As we sat there chatting about what to get, watching grey clouds roll in, my phone buzzed with a text message from a friend of mine. “Dave, I just heard about Jarod. I’m so sorry.”

I looked at my wife and we both sat there confused and horrified for a moment. Neither of us had no idea what was going on, and I asked him to clarify.

“I’m so sorry, I thought you would have heard by now. Jarod took his own life today.”

It didn’t make sense. We didn’t have a category for this information, because…we thought we knew him. As we learned more about the circumstances surrounding everything, our grief and the grief of many others was mingled with the question that always seems to come up when someone reflects on someone who recently committed suicide: “Why couldn’t he just talk to me? To somebody?”

I met my friend Jarod shortly after I started going to Christ Community Church. He was a regular musician there, and on staff helping, among other things, to coordinate with the small group leaders. He and I developed a friendship that developed over many years. We had many things in common – we were both musicians, albeit of a very different variety; Jarod was a singer and songwriter who played guitar and taught many students, while I was a tuba player with on-and-off times playing with New Orleans brass bands in town. We were both strongly in the “reformed” mindset of Christianity, though over the years we parted ways on certain issues; he wound up developing convictions that led him and his wife Morgan to leave the Baptist tradition and join an Anglican church, while I grew more firm in my credobaptist and church autonomy convictions.

But through all that we remained close. While that was going on I started my previous podcast, formerly known as Spurgeon Audio, then Kings Way Talk. When I wanted to have a regular partner to discuss subjects, my first choice was Jarod. We’d always spent hours many weekends up at the local cigar shop discussing the books we were reading, the goings-on of our lives, and the struggles of sin and faith we were working through. He sat with me and listened as I discussed issues like my previous marriage collapsing and trying to find healing in that. He was a tremendous encouragement to me in very dark times, and an incredible blessing in good ones. He served as a groomsman for my marriage to Ravyn and led us all in worship for the service.

When we’d get behind the microphone his insights were always helpful. He helped me think through my own maturing faith in new ways, and helped me to get away from looking at my faith as a matter of “us versus the world” and more as a matter of “serving those around us in patient love.” Because of his encouragement I was able to grow in new ways as I saw the deeper truth underlying the reality of God’s gracious and sovereign rule over our world. Our discussions especially helped me think through the dangers of valuing certainty over truth.

So when I read those texts, I was shocked and horrified to my very core. My good friend, my brother, wasn’t just dead – he’d taken his own life. I was shocked, because I couldn’t imagine him feeling like he couldn’t just talk to me about difficult things. I couldn’t picture him reaching that level of despair.

But then I took another step in thinking about it that I found later many of my friends who’d known Jarod were also doing: I began asking myself, “What would drive me to that level?” I know my sin tendencies. I am well aware of the ways in which I tend to fall when life’s pressures are turned up. Is there a fear, a frustration, a doubt that could grow like a weed in my heart to the point that I begin to believe I can’t dare confide in someone else? Or that even if I do find that someone, that my life is about to be blown open in irreversible ways?

I don’t know. I don’t think any of us truly know the depths of our own hearts, and only God can say He knows us to that level. So grief and confusion become mingled with a flavor of fear and self-doubt in such a time. And then there’s the anger. Anger at myself for not pursuing our friendship harder than I had been in the days leading up to it. For not somehow knowing what even his closest family didn’t know. And anger at him, for not knowing – he could have come to me. To someone.

Honestly there are lots of questions I’ve wrestled with over the course of the last week. But as I do, I find myself sitting in the dirt with Job, my hand over my mouth. My wisdom is so small, and I certainly have no special insight into his mind in those last moments. All I do know is God’s character. I know God is merciful and kind. I know His grace is greater than we can imagine. I know that our salvation is His work, not our own.

And so, I grieve the loss of my friend. I grieve my brother. And I trust to God’s perfect wisdom and love for Jarod, and for myself. I’ve had dark moments in my life and I’ve known those who have died, but this is a uniquely difficult flavor of sadness. But as Paul said, I don’t grieve as one without hope. I look to the day that I will see him again. And I am incredibly grateful for all those around us who are grieving in this time who are offering comfort and wise counsel, who are helping us to turn our eyes to Jesus and find our hope there even in this dark time.

I would like to close by asking you to consider supporting his widow Morgan in this time, to help offset funeral costs and to give her what she needs as she works through this tragic period: time, to heal and to see what her next steps will be. You can find the GoFundMe being managed by one of her church leaders at this link. And if there is anyone reading this who is finding that despair growing, who is beginning to think on some level that this “permanent solution to a temporary problem” is the right choice – please, find someone to talk to. Know that you’re not alone. You can even send me an email. Our life in Christ is not made to be run on our own, but we are to bear one another’s burdens, and yours is not too great for such a grace.

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What We Believe – The Gospel in the Old Testament

In this continuing series, I am posting short papers I’ve written for my church’s elder class on different topics. This week’s paper is on finding the gospel in the Old Testament.

When I was young, I remember that at the church we went to, “preaching the gospel” referred specifically to sermons that were on the story of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. We weren’t a terribly expository church in terms of the approach that was taken to Scripture, and this meant that “preaching the gospel” happened maybe a couple times a year.

But the truth is, the gospel is a much bigger concept than that, and in fact, it is seen all throughout Scripture. Some take this idea and apply it in ways that go beyond good hermeneutical principles, with one more extreme example being something like, any reference to the word “rock” is a reference to Christ because Christ is the rock upon which we are to build our lives, as Jesus says in a parable in Matthew 7.

But we truly can see the gospel all throughout the Scriptures. The Old Testament constantly points ahead to the person and work of Jesus Christ, and if we look at the whole message of the gospel, we can see how this works. It’s not that every part of the Old Testament points to the entire gospel, but that it touches on different elements all throughout. To illustrate this I want to introduce a tool I’ve borrowed from the Simeon Trust preaching workshops, a truly excellent program I think everyone who aspires to teach and preach in their churches should consider taking part in at least once. That tool is what is referred to as the Eternal Gospel Timeline:

Each section of the diagram points to different points in the life and work of Jesus, from His existence in eternity past before the incarnation (“before” being a relative term of course, given the timeless nature of eternity), to the different elements of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and beyond – His current position as the firstborn of those who will receive eternal life, and to our future hope in His return and the restoration of creation to sinless perfection.

Using this tool, I will take three passages in view and argue how they point to different elements of the gospel as this diagram breaks it down. These aren’t intended to be exhaustive, but simply brief summaries that could be expanded upon in sermons or other settings.

Isaiah 14:1-2

This passage is a break between two long poetic sections of prophecy, running from all of chapter 13 and 14:3-21, where God pronounces judgment upon Babylon, who had taken the remaining tribes of Israel into captivity (after Assyria had taken the 10 tribes of Samaria). Prior to this section God declares that Babylon itself will be destroyed, and subsequent to it, that the king of Babylon will lose everything and fall from the greatest heights to the deepest depths.

These two verses are held to point to the return of Israel to its lands seen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and certainly that is true, especially in the fulfillment of phrases such as “The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland.” But even in those books we don’t see a total fulfillment of this prophecy in that time, because while the Israelites did return with the support of the Persian king and enjoyed their protection while they began to rebuild, they certainly did not “possess them as male and female slaves in the LORD’s land” or “make captives of their captors and…rule over their oppressors.”

The greater fulfillment in Christ can be seen in the eternal future, when there is no longer any animosity remaining between Jew and Gentile but all are one in Christ, and worship Him together in a kingdom without end. Isaiah draws this picture out further in chapter 60, as he describes Zion as the center of all human commerce and worship, where all the peoples of the world will come to pay tribute to God and to God’s own people.

Deuteronomy 26:16-19

This passage sees God summarizing the covenant to Israel, and reminding them of His promises if they fulfill the covenant and obey His laws. Of course, Israel did not do so, repeatedly falling into idolatry throughout their history. But we see this fulfilled finally in the consummation of all things, when Christ stands in the place of His people as the one who has perfectly honored and fulfilled God’s law in life, and taken on the punishment due His people in death.

In Christ we have a better Adam who we can rest in (Romans 5:12-21), and who receives glory in His triumph that we can rejoice in (Revelation 5:6-14). In Christ we find success in our desires to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, laws and ordinances, and to obey Him, and in that restoration of creation we will see that finally fulfilled before our eyes.

Psalm 88

In this desperate cry to God for help, the sons of Korah cry out with the agony of an Israelite suffering not just from an enemy’s attack, but under God’s own wrath. Death is approaching, and is here, as the psalmist pleads with God for mercy. We see throughout this psalm the agony of Jesus dying, and the mourning ache of His burial, the questions of God’s silence in the face of such a loss that weighed on His disciples’ minds in the days before His resurrection.

The heart of suffering sees its cause in God’s own will, yet also trusts to God as the one who will bring a perfect resolution to that suffering, as Jesus did. When we walk through times of suffering as believers, we see in passages like this that our circumstances are not out of God’s control, but rather, that even in this His will is accomplished. We are also reminded that to suffer in this world is a tiny thing in the face of the glory of eternity with God.

This is only a small sample, but we can use this same method to work through the entire Old Testament. Because Jesus and His work are the lynchpin of all of Scripture, He truly provides the lens through which we can understand the entire Bible, and through Him we can preach the gospel from every passage.

Take some of your favorite Old Testament passages and use the diagram above to see how it points to the gospel. Share your thoughts and questions below!

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What We Believe – Scripture’s Inspiration and Inerrancy

This is a series based on short papers I’ve written for my church’s elder class. We are going through Boice’s Foundations of the Christian Faith and discussing different subjects out of our church statement of faith. Where appropriate I’ve edited them slightly to make them more general in tone as opposed to specific to my church, as well as expanded on areas that could use it since these were originally written to fit into a five-minute presentation time.
This entry’s subject: The inspiration of Scripture and what it means for it to be inerrant.

When we say that Scripture is inerrant – without mistake – we have to recognize that its inerrancy is focused on the information it is wanting to impart in its context. We must say that everything it affirms is true, and that it does not affirm anything that is untrue.  And we must understand that it is inerrant because it is God’s speech to us, not because of any special skill of the writers.

The Christian view of inspiration is not that human beings were involved in some sort of automatic writing experience, where their minds disconnected from their bodies and when they reawakened, they had a book of the Bible in front of them. Rather, the authors wrote from their own experiences and with their own voices, but what they produced was ordained by God to be His Word. Likewise, God’s people have recognized what His Word by the same means that it came into being – the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible consists of multiple kinds of literature, including historical works, poetry and song, wisdom literature meant to instruct, and letters written to churches or individuals for various reasons. The voices of the authors are intact and unique, even though their subjects vary widely. But as Peter wrote, “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

But in defending this to those who would deny such a status to Scripture, we have to recognize three main issues that should be kept in mind.

Answering in wisdom and love

First – Scripture’s inerrancy is bound up in its context and intent, not its faithfulness to modern scientific standards and conceptions. Many debates have arisen, for example, over the issue of creation and how we are to understand the opening of Genesis in the face of scientific claims regarding the age of the earth and the larger universe. Many Christians have chosen to stake out fierce defenses of a certain interpretation of time out of a belief that anything else would mean a denial of scriptural inerrancy. But the debate itself causes both Christians and non-Christians to miss the point of the text – that God is the author of all that is, that He rules it and it all obeys His will, even when sin and disobedience are in view. Likewise, when God includes bats in the list of unclean birds the Israelites may not eat in Leviticus 11, it is not an error because bats are actually mammals. An Israelite of the time would have looked at a flying bat and classified it with birds because it flies like most birds, and the Linnaean classification of bats as mammals was thousands of years in the future. 

Second – the challenges posed to inerrancy by others are not always rooted in good faith, and that when pushed into pursuing truth in good faith, their questions do typically have answers. For example, many modern academic critics exploit the wiggle room they are granted when writing popular works, room which they do not exploit when actually producing academic works on the same topic. One well-known critic of Christianity, Bart Ehrman, has gained many adherents through books claiming that we can hardly claim to know what the original autographs of Scripture said, while admitting in academic works and debates with Christians that by and large we do have an accurate conception of the text by any reasonable standard. If the concern about Scripture’s claim to inerrancy is determining what is true, we surely must admit that truth requires consistency, and arguments using inconsistent standards cannot hold out against the claims of Scripture.

Finally, that debating inerrancy should be pointed towards a desire to reveal the heart of another, and less to nitpicking specific points. Using the previous example of an unbeliever who is willing to use double standards to attack Scripture, we must consider the words of Proverbs 26:4-5: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” In other words, beware allowing the mindset of the world to affect our approach to this issue, where fear and doubt might drive us to likewise engage in double standards and untruth. Rather, we should be forthright in our approach and positions, and build a relationship in discussions that encourage others to do the same, so that we can engage openly and display our reliance on Christ, and the sufficiency of His Word for revealing everything that we need to know about the Lord we love.

Scripture is enough

There is one final question that I want to answer: why is this important? The answer is that we need to have God’s guidance in our lives. Our hearts, as Jeremiah 17:9 says, are “more deceitful than anything else, and incurable – who can understand it?” The answer to the prophet’s question is that God can and does. He knows our hearts long for things that are destructive to our well-being. He knows our inclination to look at a thing that is bad and call it good, out of our own desires – desires that we know point us to destruction. Knowing that God has spoken clearly means we have a foundation to build upon. It also means that when that building goes wrong, we have the reassurance that God has redeemed us, and that He will bring the work He began in Christ to its fulfillment in this world through the patient endurance and loving sacrifice of His church. And finally, we can live in an open-handed way with everything – even our own lives – knowing that the day is coming that Jesus will come to restore everything that human sin has broken.

The position that Scripture holds for Christians – that it is theopneustos, God’s own breathed-out words to His people – means that inerrancy is a necessary consequence of this truth. Because it is God’s words to us, we must confess that it is the authority above all others. We cannot place authorities above it or beside it, and the Lord administers it to our hearts by His Holy Spirit, through the work of the church. We can dig into mountains of evidence for its truth, whether archaeological, historical, textual, or more. We can look at the method by which the New Testament was preserved from tampering as it spread across the ancient world and wonder at God’s providence in the face of the world’s opposition. 

Above all, we must not take God’s Word for granted, but submit our hearts and minds to it while we minister to one another with it, in Paul’s words, “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” And the reason why it is so important to us that the Bible is God’s Word is found at the very beginning of the book of Genesis. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and put their own wisdom over His, they and everyone descended from them inherited the curse of sin, of believing that our twisted desires are a greater and worthier truth than God’s wisdom. We need God’s Word to show us where we err, and direct us to what is right. When we submit to His Word, we find the way to the life that they left behind in that garden, in the obedient work of Jesus Christ, and we find renewal that we can trust to each day to bring transformed hearts and renewed minds.

How have you seen this work out in your life? Where do you struggle with this? Please let us know in the comments.

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What We Believe – The Role and Authority of Scripture

This is a series based on short papers I’ve written for my church’s elder class. We are going through Boice’s Foundations of the Christian Faith and discussing different subjects out of our church statement of faith. Where appropriate I’ve edited them slightly to make them more general in tone as opposed to specific to my church, as well as expanded on areas that could use it since these were originally written to fit into a five-minute presentation time.
This entry’s subject: What is the Bible, and what does it mean for it to be an authority for the church?

Scripture holds a position in the Christian faith above all other rules, authorities, or leaders. It explains and displays God’s existence, and His nature, character, and actions are demonstrated and displayed through the text. We can deduce from creation itself that there is a Creator who has made all that is. But what the Bible does is place its reader in the position of hearing not just that God is, but that everything that exists is under His authority, and that it all serves to give Him glory. It declares that God is eternal, that He can be known on a personal level, and that He is actively working in His creation for His glory and for our good. We see this when we study it, and the more we learn about what it says and even how it came to be, we see how determined God is to complete His great work in redeeming creation.

That is why what Paul says about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 is so important, that “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” What God reveals to us is the standard by which everything else is judged, specifically because it is His very speech. There cannot be a higher standard by which we can judge ourselves, because God has spoken clearly and directly through the writers of Scripture. And even better, He hasn’t left us alone to understand it by our own wisdom, but has blessed us with His Spirit to guide us.

One of the classic standards of the Reformation era was the phrase sola scriptura, meaning “Scripture alone.” But that didn’t mean that we need only the Bible and nothing else to live life as Christians. A fuller expression of this idea would be that “Scripture alone is the sole infallible rule of faith for the church.” We have other rules of faith – a church’s statement of faith or creed, for example, as well as traditions within denominations and teachings of wise people that have come before us and lived life in Christ. But they all must submit to Scripture as the measure by which they are judged. And it is lived in and with the church – one man alone with no others who may hold him accountable might land wherever he may wish, but among God’s people he has others who will minister to him like Priscilla and Aquila did to Apollos, in correcting and guiding him in his understanding and faith.

Whenever others attempt to place other rules of faith alongside Scripture, ultimately they must either fall beneath it or become an interpretive guide for it. The Roman Catholic church claims that Scripture, church tradition, and the teachings of the magisterium are equals in guiding the church, yet in practice it ultimately becomes the words of their leadership or tradition that influence how Scripture is understood. Mormons claim that they believe that the Bible is God’s Word, yet their leadership appends the phrase “so far as it has been correctly interpreted” to that concept. Ultimately, the Bible falls beneath the opinions of the current prophet of the LDS church and its meanings filtered through his claims.

For Scripture to serve as the standard by which we may minister to believers in “teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness,” it must be held above our human wisdom and desires, and instead all of those things must rub up against it and be guided by it. It must be more than base information to know, but it should guide our thoughts and correct our heart’s desires. By God’s grace we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us to minister His Word through one another. Even where disagreements grow, He teaches humility and patience, and reveals that what He has revealed belongs to us and is worthy of trust and obedience.

How have you seen this work out in your life and faith? Where do you struggle with this? We welcome all questions and discussion below in the comments.

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New Feature – What We Believe

Dave here – Jake and I both are taking part in a class geared around diving deeper into theology and the statement of faith of our church. Part of that is focused around writing short papers on different questions related to that statement while we are studying the subjects in James Montgomery Boice’s Foundations of the Christian Faith. Jake has been encouraging me to take the ones I’ve put together and publish them, so that’s what this is going to be. The goal will be to sort of set out in an accessible and readable form what it is that we believe, to provide context that will go into the subjects we discuss. So without further ado, I’m going to begin with the first subject we addressed – defining the gospel, in a way that doesn’t require a lot of preexisting understanding of the language of church.

The gospel is good news, not just because that’s literally what the word means, but because it is a beacon of hope in a world that doesn’t exactly shine with hope. All you have to do is open your phone and look at your news app, or even scroll Facebook for ten seconds. You don’t have to look very hard to see how full of evil, despair, and loss our world is. How many times have you looked at a news story of someone doing something especially wicked, or just seen people acting out, and just shaken your head at that?

But the gospel isn’t something that starts its work simply “out there.” It begins “in here,” in each of us. Because the fact is, I don’t think you have to work very hard to see what evil comes out of you without having to work very hard. Have you taken things that weren’t yours? Said things that hurt someone deeply, and now you regret that moment and carry it like a weight? Even the thoughts that come across your mind – you don’t have to tell me what they are. Because I know, because…I’ve had them too. Everyone has. “I want, I want, I want…” even though having it will harm you, or someone else, or more. The list is endless.

But this is why the gospel is so incredibly important, and it’s why the Bible is so big. Start at the beginning, you see how humans tried to be their own gods, tried to take the concept of right and wrong into their hands, and instead found only death. And we still do it, over and over today. But the gospel came in right at the beginning – right in the shadow of sin’s curse taking effect, in Genesis 3, God promised the first humans that He would undo all of it, renew everything, through someone who was to come in the future.

That someone is Jesus. He was born in a time and place, and yet He has always been. The Son of God laid aside His divine glory to take on the life of a lowly human, because in taking on that life He was able to live perfectly. Then, He challenged that curse of sin, and its consequence – death. He died, and it was a horrible death, on a Roman cross – a death that was intended to mock and degrade its victim. But Jesus went to it with no shame.

But He didn’t just die and now we mourn Him. He defeated those curses – sin, He has overcome completely, because He stood in the place of all who believe in Him and died the death we all deserve, receiving that punishment as the perfect replacement. If you look at the Old Testament law you see over and over how animals were sacrificed because they took the place of their sinful owners, taking the death their sins deserved. Jesus did that for all who believe in Him, and His work is finished. But there’s another piece that’s critical – He isn’t dead. He rose again, defeating and destroying death. To believe in Jesus is to trust that He has paid for the sins you’re guilty of, and to hope in His work that will undo death. But, it’s also to participate in His great work on earth now, to undo those curses of sin and death through the love and service we give one another, and our neighbors. 

The gospel is good news for you, and for me, and for everyone who hears it and believes it, because it means we can let go of the weight we carry when we believe we can control our lives and our world, because we can’t. But we have a good God who does, and who calls us to Himself, in Jesus. His work is not heavy and exhausting, but gives joy and nourishes life.

Let us know what you think – how would you try to explain the gospel to someone? Leave a comment below!

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