Preach the Gospel... to Yourself

The community of believers, who I have grown up in and am now living among (along with the authors I read), emphasize the importance of preaching the gospel. My passion for reaching the lost and fulfilling the Great Commission by taking the gospel to the nations has been ingrained within me from childhood. I’m incredibly grateful for the men and women that God placed in my life that have instilled in me a great passion for preaching the Gospel and seeing the glory of God spread throughout the world. However, we all too often, whether consciously or not, view the Gospel simply as something that we must share with those who don’t know it. Our focus becomes preach the Gospel to those in need while we (believers) move onto greater things in the Christian life. The problem is we are always in need of the Gospel. We don’t move on from the Gospel. It is the means by which we must live. The Gospel is our only hope before and after our initial justification. We aren’t saved to then live holy lives by having certain disciplines in our lives. Rather we are saved to live holy lives by the power of the Gospel. Even after we are justified (we have that initial moment of salvation), we still live by grace alone through faith alone in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yes, we are made new, but we are still in the flesh. Our only hope of following Christ is to continually live by the Gospel of grace through faith.

So we can’t allow ourselves to solely preach the Gospel to others. Yes, this most certainly must be top priority, but we must also preach the Gospel to ourselves daily. If we are to live in a manner worthy of Christ and His Gospel, we must keep the truths of that gospel before us constantly. This past week at a conference I attended, C J Mahaney brought the importance of this truth fully back into view. He preached out of Jude and explained that in order for us to “keep [ourselves] in the love of God” (v. 21), we must preach the gospel to ourselves daily. To keep our affections passionate toward Christ, we must constantly remember the Gospel, always preaching what Christ did for us upon the cross, always meditating upon the glorious grace poured out upon us, and always reveling in the love of God revealed in the Gospel. This will not only keep our hearts warm toward our God, but it will also keep us reliant upon grace as we seek to follow after Christ. So preach the Gospel to the nations, but also to yourself.

Grace and Peace,

BMoore