What comes to mind when you hear the words, "preaching the gospel"? Is that something that primarily takes place on Sunday mornings in church? Do you take a passive approach to preaching? (I just show up on Sundays and listen while someone else preaches...) Do you realize that you are called to be a preacher? Yes, little old you. Male, female, young, old, high-school-drop-out or PhD in theology - you are called to be a preacher of the gospel. You are called to preach the gospel to your unsaved friends, to your saved friends, to your children, to your spouse, and perhaps most importantly, to yourself!
Jerry Bridge's book, The Discipline of Grace, contains one of the most helpful chapter(s) on preaching the gospel to oneself. Here he provides a helpful definition of what we mean by "preaching the gospel to yourself":
"To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God's holy wrath is no longer directed toward you."
Do you preach to yourself like that through out the day? If not, then you run two risks. When the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin you will either fall into condemnation (trying to bear the penalty for your own sin) or licentiousness (blow-off the conviction, ignore it and continue on). As we grow in "continually facing up to our own sinfulness and then fleeing to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life" then we can expect to grow in love for the Savior, holiness, joy and freedom from sin. So, ready to preach today?
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As we grow in "continually facing up to our own sinfulness and then fleeing to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life" then we can expect to grow in love for the Savior, holiness, joy and freedom from sin. So, ready to preach today?
Thank you!
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