TUESDAY November 14th
Romans 1:1-6
‘Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.’
I have returned today to the same verses as yesterday for the purpose of ensuring that we know exactly what the gospel is all about that Paul reminds us that he had been called by the grace of God to proclaim.
It is the ‘gospel of God’ which was declared through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other gospel, and as we read in Acts 4 there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we can and must be saved (Acts 4:12)
In fact, Paul is so fired up concerning the gospel, that he had to speak a severe warning to the Church at Galatia, for some were beginning to distort the gospel, we see it in Galatians 1:8 ‘But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.’
Many have continued to distort the message of the gospel, and not only do we see it with the various cults and isms, but we also see how a false gospel is presented through other religions and sadly far too often we see how it has become distorted through so much of what is presented through those who share in the health, wealth, prosperity gospel.
We should be grateful that God gave to Paul, and the other New Testament writers such an understanding of what the gospel is really all about that we too can understand its message and respond to it. But, at the same time we need to ensure that we do not distort the gospel and be careful that we do not follow or listen to those who distort the gospel, but always stand true to what is written in the word of God.