Gospel Day Three

Welcome to Day Three. In Day Two we saw how the enemy of God imprisons us. How he works to keep us away from the love, respect, joy, security and sense of worth and that we so desperately need and desire.

In this Trail we will see God's response to the enemy...And what a response it is!

Are you ready to begin?

In the video from Day One, we saw Jesus stepping in front of the prisoner to absorb the punishment.

Jesus quite literally takes the beating for each prisoner, including you.

He pays the price for all your negative acts, your sins, that you committed while you were estranged from God.

This miraculous act is called salvation. Jesus pays the price, taking the punishment that belongs to you and me.

This is what it means to be 'saved'. It simply means to be rescued from the consequences of all our negative actions and intentions.

Even if you don't believe it yet, take a moment to reflect on the possibility of being rescued from the punishment of all your negative actions.

Select 'Successful' when you are finished.

Did you stop and take a moment to really imagine what it would mean to be rescued from all your negative actions and intentions? It's an amazing thought to ponder. Also, If you are wondering about all those negative actions and intentions that no one else, except you, know about, yes, they count as well.

The proof can be found in your own conscience. Your conscience serves to rob you of the peace of mind and well being that you would have enjoyed if not for those behaviors...even if no one else knows about them.

Do you agree?

Okay, to help you understand this idea of salvation further, imagine the following:

Let's say that you ran up a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars and had no way to pay it back. Unfortunately for you, you borrowed the money from the mob and they don't take kindly to your inability to pay back your debts.

They threaten to harm, even kill you and those you love. Their threats cast fear and dread over your life. You never know when they are going to show up. Your life, security and relationships are under constant threat of attack.

Do you have this scenario established in your mind?

Then, out of nowhere, a perfect stranger shows up and pays off all your debts!

Suddenly, you are completely free from all your burdens, potential harm and punishment.

Later, you discover that this stranger not only paid off your debts, but the debts of everyone who owed the mob money and had no way to repay it.

Finally, you discover an even more shocking fact: he paid off these debts by willfully sacrificing his life. You discover that he volunteered to be brutally beaten and then tortured to death by the mob in exchange for your freedom.

That was the cost he was willing to pay.

Now, what would you want to say to that stranger?

The Gospel tells us that the stranger's name is Jesus. It tells us that He personally paid the price for all your sins. Every act of selfishness, cruelty, immorality, cowardliness, etc. Every act that is causing you shame. Every single one of them past, present and future.

He has done this NO MATTER HOW TERRIBLE YOUR SINS ARE OR HOW TERRIBLE YOU HAVE COME TO BELIEVE YOU ARE.

He paid the price by taking on to Himself all the sins of this world. He gave His life as a sacrifice.

Please take a moment to allow this, the most important piece of news you will ever receive, to penetrate.

Do not simply pass over this, stay with it for as long as you need.

To actually see how this news was played out in the life of one person, go to the VIDEO button above and watch the short clip.

Select 'Successful' when you are ready to proceed to the next step.

His gave His life, which was without sin, in exchange for the forgiveness of all the sins of this world.

He did this because His Father, God, asked Him to. He did it out of love for His Father and, in so doing, reveals the true nature of God's character.

Yes, evil exists because we live in a world held captive by the enemy of God. But, through Jesus's sacrifice, God demonstrates something about Himself that He could not have demonstrated without evil having entered the world, namely:

That He has unmeasurable mercy, compassion, love and faithfulness toward you.

This is the 'good news' about who God is, about His essential character.

If you knew, without doubt, that your salvation was a reality, how much would it improve your current view of God?

This miraculously good news comes with one relatively small catch:

You have to believe that Jesus has, indeed, accomplished this. The ability to believe comes easier to some than it does for others.

Why is there a catch? Why do we need to believe in order to receive salvation?

Consider this, in the example of the stranger that paid off all your debts, what if you refused to believe that he had done so?

What if you thought that it sounded 'ridiculous', 'unrealistic', 'illogical'; that it was 'wishful thinking', 'too good to be true'?

What if you thought: 'good things like this just don't happen to someone like me'?

Simply put, if you couldn't believe the good news about your debts being paid off, how worried would you still be about the mob?

So belief is the 'catch' to receiving the cancelations of your debts.

When you believe that Jesus died for the sins of this world, you begin the process of receiving your freedom. You take your first steps out from the imprisonment of shame, fear, darkness and inadequacy.

You begin your journey into the light and joy of the new life that comes with God's gift of salvation.

Whether you believe in it yet or not, how well do you understand the good news of God's gift of salvation so far?

We've covered a lot of ground today, let's stop for now.

In the next Trail, we will look at how we can take this miraculous gift and turn it into something we can actually experience in our day to day life.


Day Four will appear in your Day Plan tomorrow.