The Gospel Applied

This exercise was born out of my church’s Bible study while reading the book “Because He Loves Me,” by Elyse Fitzpatrick. Specifically, this came from Chapter 10: “Take Courage; Your Sins Are Forgiven.” I highly recommend this book as it was the jumping off point for my understanding the Doctrines of Grace. I hope you will take some time to complete this exercise, even if you haven’t read the book.

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We are going to have a time of quiet reflection. A time for you to seek the Lord and ask him to reveal how the incarnation, His sinless life, the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension apply to your daily struggles and sins. As I prepared to do this I looked through the examples in the chapter. These were “big” sins/struggles by human standards: eating disorders, workaholism, suicidal thoughts, lust. I had a hard time seeing my own sin when comparing to these examples. I prayed and I actually asked my family what they thought my biggest sins were. That was an eye-opening place to start! But it got me writing and thinking, and God took it from there. As I sought to apply these 5 aspects of the Gospel, I re-read Elyse’s application to the examples in the chapter. I highlighted what jumped out at me in each one and used those as a starting point. I’m still taking it all in but just to give you another, maybe more tangible example, I’m going to share with you what God revealed to me.

I started by listing my sins: yelling, impatience, discontentment at the monotony of serving my family, slothfulness. Then I got more specific: discontentment at serving my family manifested in yelling, impatience, expecting perfection from my children/expecting worship from my family. Slothfulness, pride – I want to be worshipped. I want to sit on a throne doing nothing. I struggle with wrong motives - doing good out of legalism and then pride in “look at what I’ve done.” I suffer from idolatry and unbelief – just like Elyse said. I idolize myself and I don’t believe Jesus is enough.

Then I started to think about the incarnation. Jesus laid aside his right to be worshipped and obeyed. He subjected himself to sinful authorities. He humbled himself, not asserting his deity but serving everyone around him, completely content because he trusted his Father.

His sinless life: Not only has Jesus been perfect in my place, he was perfect in place of my children. Jesus served and submitted himself for the glory of the Father alone. When I expect acclaim and praise for all I “do” I need to remember the only one who deserves glory is Christ who lived perfect in my place.

The crucifixion: Like George on page 164 I don’t often see the cross for what it is – “an indictment and conviction of my abject failure.” The cross reminds me that all I do is filthy rags because even my goodness deserves the death that Jesus died in my place. When I think, “I don’t deserve to be spoken to like that, I don’t deserve to be treated like that,” I need to remember what I truly deserve is a gruesome death on a cross and an eternity in torment and darkness. When I desire to be worshipped I need to remember Jesus’ death to self in order that I can worship GOD forever. And HE is the only one who truly deserves worship.

The resurrection: I know that God has the power to change my idolatrous heart because he finished the work of justifying me when he raised Jesus from the dead. I have to force myself to stop and think about the dead coming back to life. That is a BIG deal. I serve a powerful God. He’s revealing to me that my idolatry of self is a desire to be loved. And because of the finished work, I am more loved & welcomed than I’ve ever desired. This is the biggest struggle for me – to accept that I really am loved not because of anything I’ve done.

The ascension: Not only am I loved and welcomed but until that day when I enter His presence, Jesus my bridegroom, the lover of my wretched soul, intercedes for me. He sees my struggles and he prays for me. He reminds his Father that he’s borne the wrath that was meant for me. I can know because of this that he is sanctifying me, making me a little more into his image day by day.

As I went through these facets of the Gospel, I really saw my idolatry and unbelief. I need to repent of my self-worship, my running from God and doing all my good in my own strength. Like Mike in our chapter, I need to draw near to the throne of grace.

For me, practically that means just spending more time with my Savior. I need to meditate on how the Gospel speaks to my everyday sins and struggles. I want to make this an ongoing conversation between myself the Lord, so that as James reminds us, I do not look in the mirror of the Gospel and then walk away and forget.

I’m praying that as we move into this time of personal introspection, we would truly pursue God and our cry would be that of Psalm 139:23-24:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Some of us are like the woman with the alabaster jar – our sin is glaringly obvious to us. Some of us are like Simon and me. This process of applying the Gospel to our sin may take many quiet times with the Lord and it most likely will be a life long process but we want to encourage you to start that process today. I’m praying that the eyes of your hearts would be enlightened, that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the immeasurable greatness of his power toward you, power that raised Christ from the dead (Eph 1:17-20 paraphrase), that he may grant you strength to understand His love (Eph 3:16-19 paraphrase), and that He would give you spiritual wisdom and understanding and strengthen you for endurance and patience and fill you with joy (Col 1:9-11 paraphrase) as you dive deeper into the knowledge of your wretchedness and His glorious love.