Get the Gospel of Truth
The word "gospel" is a compound word that simply means, the "good-news", yes, good news for you my dear reader. This refers singularly to the good news that Jesus Christ has truly made peace between our God (our heavenly Father, Creator) and a sinful and fallen mankind (all of us). That we (people), being wholly depraved in our own humanness - solely consumed about how all things can and will affect me and how I may affect all things - who are completely incapable of altering our own hearts toward this type of true purity, respond in humility to this great invitation presented before us. So that we can stand in the holy presence of God Himself, with a new heart and with no condemnation at all (none what so ever) by placing our faith in the saving work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ alone. Wow, that is really good news - and that this true light of salvation is to be found only in Him, through Him and is actually all for Him and for His purposes. More specifically, that this awesome salvation can only be found in reality, that is, in the truth of all things that He designed (which can been seen in the sum of all of His attributes), in the creation He has made and has defined in its most minute detail (in reality) to us. So I personally invite you into what is true and real, regardless of what you might imagine about what you have been taught or even now may believe about God.
Many people have said that "they have tried all that" before, and "it did not work for them", or just simply they say "they know of some other way" (maybe even a better way) to achieve access to god. It is precisely here that many people get derailed and that reality itself gets distorted to the mistaken understanding that our perception is accurate and that all things should be perceived through the lens of how they affect or apply to us, instead of a true understanding - how all things relate or apply to God, who created all things and has defined them. It is only here that we can see and perceive that God is not hiding, that He is not hard to find and that He has clearly identified how He will draw a person to Himself. We mistakenly believe that our distortion of reality, is true, and that we are the "NOUN" or the main subject of this story that we call life. Oh, but we are by no means unique or even alone in this misunderstanding in history, as it has been the way of all mankind to view life from a self serving perspective "they have tried", "for them" and "they know".
The goal of my encouragement today is that we might see, hear and perceive what is real, that which is TRUE and then we can respond to it accurately. Changing what is real, like lying about what is true, is a manipulation toward a purpose. In most cases, this alteration is mistakenly perceived or thought to be for some temporal good, which (hopefully) has no great lasting affect. Not so in this case, for sure. The fact that you were made, the reason why you are actually here at this specific time, and what you will do with this life has eternal significance. All life is precious and purposeful by design - that all things that exist, "are" for a reason. It is in this designed purpose, that you personally have a relationship with all other things that were made - and with that, a responsibility in this creation and to your creator. We have seen, experienced and have been taught so many distortions and perversions of truth and reality, that it is almost like everyone has been deceived into thinking that everyone has their own reality, or at least it seems like they live that way. To be sure, there are not 50 trillion realities, although there may be 50 trillion perceptions of the same reality. How you traverse this has eternal significance.
There is real hope if I will leave behind what I have imagined to be so and others have redefined about real life; that which I think or feel is real; and then carefully examine life in its accurate form of what really is, so that my perception of reality is not distorted moving forward. My relationship with another person, thing, or an event is presented to me and has been defined by someone other than myself and is not predicated on what I may think or believe about that relationship, what it is or is not. The latter may influence my actions or thoughts, but does not validate or invalidate its existence in reality. For example: I have a relationship with the bear, which is digging through my trash cans. This relationship was presented to me (not of my choosing in reality and not from my own imagination), and may be perceived by me one way or another, depending on my knowledge of its presence there and when and how I find that information out. The relationship may certainly take on many forms and may result in different conclusions, but my personal awareness of the bear's presence has no bearing on the fact that the bear exists in my yard. My creator exists as well as His creation exists, and therefore a relationship has been introduced to me and has been clearly defined by Him, and confirmed through all that I see, in all that He has said, all that He has done. I am fully convinced that I have a responsibility to respond to Him as the Creator and to all the rest of His creation, to love my God and to love my neighbor.
You will see and hear a lot of things on the Internet today, from your own friends and family; and even from men and women professing to be pastors or religious in some way. There is such a vast array of confusing information that is available to us through this and other media, some of this information is actually very true and accurate, which can really help us, but then there is that which is filled with all kinds of lies and deception that can severely damage our relationships. All the information that is given and received in our minds has to be sifted as to its truthfulness and accuracy. We then must discern its accuracy and significance to our soul; by assessing all of the facts, details and information thoroughly, as to its origination and authorship. We do this first by sifting its authority, and then confirm its authorship by credibility. The real question is: who or by what authority, grants me the right to speak these same truths to you and your family with such certainty; and to proclaim the gospel message with an absolute authority? The answer to that is this: The Lord God almighty, (our heavenly Father) who has created me; who called me out of the grave (the rubble pile) that I have made of my life (living in the darkness) and then subsequently, has caused me to be born again, by removing me from the power of darkness and placing me in the kingdom of Light. For I have been given this new life by the power of the Holy Spirit of truth, and have been redeemed by the grace provided by Jesus Christ Himself. Furthermore, God has commissioned me, as all other true believers, who desire to glorify His name (His character) as His ambassadors, to share the truth of this salvation with all mankind, to share His love by His word and through my thoughts and action with whomever has been given an ear to hear this message and the heart to respond to the truth of the gospel. It is the need of all mankind for a Savior; to be rescued from our sins; and for the love of God that was clearly shown by Him in sending Jesus Christ to fully accomplish that on our behalf (by grace through faith) in His dying for us (dying in our place) and for taking our penalty upon Himself. The origination, and the true authorship of this gospel are from God Himself, and the authority and credibility are confirmed in who He is as creator of all, what He has said as Lord of all, and what He has done and will do as Sovereign Master of all things.
God has revealed to us, out of His great kindness and love for us, He had determined from before the world began to draw His children to Himself. This is not an exclusive club or organization that you can sign up for, or to be joined, or even that you can be such a good person as to attain to an acceptable standard to be admitted. In a show of His great compassion for us, God has chosen those whom He determines (calls) and gives them a very unique understanding and realization of sin; Yes, He judges us accurately, while we are still alive on this earth; and identifies the just eternal penalty associated with our sin. This seems like really bad news from our perspective, and so it is! So how exactly is this kind and loving? Remember that we all have revised and distorted true reality and mistakenly believe at some level, that we are mostly good (I am a good person), or even worse, that God does not exist and that we was not created, so we are caught in a trap of our own deception. His great compassion begins with bringing into reality in the truth - understanding our true condition for the first time ever. The true child of God is undone as he or she stands before their maker; God, as judge of the Living and the Dead. But He did not leave us in this despair, as He has sent His only Son, who lived the perfect life that we could not, to pay for the sin (of all believers) on a cross on our behalf (in our place), to take our place and atone for what we actually deserve. The living accept this truth and agree, assent and consent to what is real and accurate - these who are forgiven, will spend all of eternity in heaven, clothed in the righteousness of God and not of ourselves. The dead will deny this same reality of what is true and will not consent to what is accurate - these will spend all of eternity in the lake of fire.
He gives the living a desire that cannot be truly fulfilled anywhere in this life except through a real and intimate relationship with Himself. How could you know if this is happening to you, that God is leading you to an intimate relationship with Him today? For those who are reading this message and have a sincere desire to know Him, to seek and to love Him, who realize their own faults and have a desire to repent of their sins, to be cleansed and forgiven from all sin, to obey His commandments and to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, this is the best news of all. For if that truly is your desire, that means the Holy Spirit is drawing you and that your life is about to change in so many ways, for the good news of your life and your relationship with God will continue to grow, get better for you and all those around you, regardless of what circumstances you encounter, as you live it out in true reality.
This absolute truth of the good news that I am sharing with you today, goes out from all of us who believe to everyone who will listen and respond to it. Absolutely everyone alive on this earth needs to hear the truth of the good news, but only a very few will listen and be able to hear and respond to the call. God has made it clear in the bible that not many will hear the good news of His love for you, and respond with a willing heart as to be saved from your impending doom. For all those who resist His grace in this gospel, will rightly be judged by God, solely on their own merit (by their own thoughts and actions) and will certainly spend an eternity in a lake of fire. This "eternal lake of fire", is as real as it is forever; with a full sense of the justice of a fair and righteous God. The reader that cannot or will not acknowledge these words of hope are not now starting to rebel against God, but they were always in a state of rebellion and it is just a glimpse of this revelation to them and others that our God is not present in them to react differently to this appeal.
It is my earnest hope and desire that you will carefully consider the gospel truth. That you will not only hear and understand it clearly, but that you will hear and then respond to the gospel of God's grace and be saved from the impending doom that awaits all who will reject His love. If this is the way you truly feel about God, for He is the only One who can change your heart and give you a sincere desire to love Him. If you ever have had any such desire to know anything about God, about His love for you or anything at all about His holy character, then please e-mail me at deckman1963@gmail.com or call because I would just love to be able to assist you with that information, as we learn to walk in a true relationship together through this fabulous life.
If, on the other hand, you are reading this message and you are absolutely positive that you have no such desire to seek God or to love God, no desire to acknowledge or repent of your sins, no desire to be forgiven from these sins, no desire to submit to "Jesus Christ as Lord" and you have no true desire to be reconciled to your God (the one true and living God, who has created you and has shown this love to you), then unfortunately, there will be no good news for you. For, those who reject God's call, those who ignore and deny God's presence and those who act as if He does not exist, or even think that there are all kinds of gods, then they will remain as enemies of God and the bad news of this truth ("for even though they knew Him to be God, they did not honor Him as God") in their own lives will only grow worse and worse as time goes on. That too is also a promise that we have from God's word.
More Good News about God, and His love for all of us
To get a more in-depth understanding of the author of the good news of the gospel, we will first need to start with who God is, what He has done, our relationship to Him and the bad news of our separation from Him as a result of our sinful condition before Him. God's character is absolutely limitless; like the stars of the heavens, like the limitless galaxies and space that continues on forever and ever - as far as our eyes or our biggest and most powerful telescopes can see and then an eternity beyond that. Our God created all things; namely the heavens and the earth so that He could accurately represent just how vast and limitless His character is and to help us to better understand who He is, His wonderful plan for us and what He has done for us. It would take us literally an eternity to even get close to understanding His character in its fullness. Let us get started by laying out some basic attributes that He has revealed to us so that we may have an accurate working knowledge of who He is moving forward. Our God is sovereign; which means that He is in control of all things, He guides and directs all things to accomplish His sovereign purpose. God works out all things, great and small as He desires.
Our God is eternal; that is, in His essence and nature, He is immortal. He has always been in existence, from all eternity past and He will continue to be in existence through all eternity future. God has no beginning and no end - He has no equal, for there is none like Him. Our God is the self existent One; that is, He exists solely by His own power, a power that never diminishes - no one made God, for He always was and is the One who created all things; all the things we can see and all the things that we can't see. Our God is omnipotent; which means He is the source of all power, for He alone controls and maintains all things in perfect order by the might of His power - having unlimited authority and influence over the things which He has made. Our God is omnipresent; which means His presence is everywhere at all times - He is present in all places at all times. Although, even the vast space He has created cannot contain the fullness of His true presence. Our God is omniscient; which means He knows all things - having an infinite awareness, knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight of all things before, during and after their existence. Full knowledge of their present existence and all things still future.
Our God is one God, and He alone is God, for there were no gods before Him and there will be no gods after Him. He is the beginning and the end of all things, He determines the limits of all things and He is the purpose of all things - He alone determines when we are born, when we will die, where we will live, even the most intimate little details of our lives and all of our relationships. Although being one God, He has revealed Himself in three eternally distinct persons. The three persons are still of only one nature and essence, one God in three persons - we may not fully grasp and completely understand these truths, but God has given us sufficient grace to apprehend Him. We can only apprehend what He has revealed to us, namely that He is a holy Trinity: as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We will not touch on all of God's attributes here, but we will continue to carefully acknowledge additional attributes as they directly relate to the good news of the gospel, as we go. Our God is holy and pure; which means He is completely set apart from all that is human, natural and impure - He is not like us, not like any of His creation. He is wholly without defilement, without any type of flaw and without impurity in all the intentions of His heart, His thoughts and His actions are pure in all that He does. He is our actual standard of measure in all things, for in this we know what is holy and pure by what God says and by what He does. God is truth and He defines all of reality.
Our bad news starts here; for He created each and every one of us to glorify His holy name and to enjoy Him forever; that we would be an accurate representation of His character to all those who are on this earth. So that any person, by examining our lives, what they can see and ascertain of our own thoughts, intentions and our actions; our character as a whole; they could look at our lives and get a pretty good idea or glimpse of what God's character is like - that we would point all men toward Him. This witness of who we are, should accurately represent a small picture of who He is and what He has done in our lives. This is His will for our lives and why He created us. To accomplish His will in us, God has written His law upon our hearts, so that we would know what to do to be an accurate example of who He is. And He has placed into each one of us an understanding of His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine nature. These attributes are clearly seen, being understood through what He has made, so that we are without excuse. He also gave us the light of conscience; His Holy Spirit striving within our hearts to do good, directing us to abide by His law (His attributes which are written in His law) and then He is convicting us of sinful desires when we attempt to defy that law in our own selfishness and evil desires.
This is really bad news for us. For in this human body, which is decaying day by day, we continually deceive ourselves into thinking that we are something that we are really not. We know that we go against His law and the leading of our own conscience, but we still tend to convince ourselves that we are mostly good. But the fact is, that we are only adhering to our own personal or some human standards, and not even doing that as well as we would like to do. We truly believe that we have freewill in this life, but instead of choosing to do good (God's will) over our own sinful and selfish choices (our own will), we find ourselves choosing one sinful desire over another. In summary, we knew what was right, true and good, and we were directed by His Holy Spirit how to do the right thing and how to avoid sinful thoughts and behavior, but we were both collectively and independently unwilling to obey His leading. In a willful act of defiance to God's will (rebellion), we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We find ourselves at this point, completely incapable of accurately representing His holiness, purity or any other of His true attributes. We now find ourselves in a state of total depravity - this is the absolute inability to do His will and no way to change our own hearts before a holy God without His help. We are in need of a savior.
Actually, He is the only one who will be able to do good in and through us to His glory. Even when God shows His mercy on us and starts to draw us by His Holy Spirit toward Himself, and we start seeking to love Him at some level, having been given a desire to obey His law, but we find ourselves to be incapable of obeying His will in our own strength. We try our best to fulfill the desires that have been placed in us by attempting to do good, but we find out that we are enslaved by our failures as we continue to make decisions driven by selfish motives. We find ourselves broken and crushed in spirit, grieved and mourning our sinful choices - this too is a gracious gift from God Himself. For, none of us, on our own accord could ever see spiritual things clearly without God opening our eyes and ears to the truth. This is allowed by God so that we will be able to experience our own inability to choose correctly in our humanness. We acknowledge what the scripture says, "that we are dead in our transgressions and sins". So that it becomes clear to us that the power to make right choices, to love Him and to obey His law cannot come from within us, but it must be initiated from outside of ourselves - that it must come from God Himself.
Our God is righteous and just; which indicates that He rightly blesses all of our good thoughts, intentions and acts of obedience to His divine will. The blessing for a heart of obedience includes intimate fellowship and communion with God Himself, a portion in His divine nature and an inheritance of all that He is for all eternity; which makes our reward as limitless as His character. This also means that He rightly pronounces a just and accurate punishment for all evil and bad thoughts, intentions and actions of disobedience (rebellion) to His will. These are just some of His attributes, of righteousness and justice, and these would mandate that His wrath is active against such sin, evil and wickedness. He has rightly determined that the penalty for sin is death. The penalty of sin is experienced in both physical and spiritual death; for we will all one day physically die, this body of ours is slowly fading away and will one day fail us completely. In our sin, we experience the spiritual death as we are enslaved to a life of sin and death, unable to discern spiritual things and that we are outside of His grace, we are incapable of responding to any spiritual stimulus - "absolute inability". Those who say that there are many ways to god, find themselves in a delusion of reality, as the god they have imagined or have redefined does not exist, for there is only one true and living God.
Once clarity sets in and we see the truth for just a brief moment, that is, God's perfect standard of measure (the law of God) and our absolute inability to attain to the true standard, we are left crushed under the weight of guilt and shame from making one poor choice after another until it has completely overwhelmed us. Our God is loving and kind; which is identified in that He loves us too much to leave us in this desperate state of "absolute inability" without a remedy for our sin. For His divine love is not merely a feeling or an emotion, like human love, to make us feel better about our sin, but is active, powerful and purposeful. True divine love, a love that is from God, is a choice of the persons own will to sacrifice oneself to fulfill and meet a need in someone else's life (to love ones own neighbor as he loves himself). So God our Father, has given of Himself to provide a remedy for our sinful condition in this same way, by sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross, on our behalf (as a substitute) and to fulfill the righteous requirement of death as a perfect and sinless substitute for us. In this propitiation, this substitute must be pure, blameless and completely without sin. What we need is a Savior, who will pay our debt in full and free us from our current slavery to sin and death; who will make peace with God on our behalf. God has sent Jesus Christ to be that perfect and righteous substitute, He is our one and only Savior. We can only enter into the presence of God through His Son.
Our God is merciful; which is evidenced in His desire to keep us safe from the penalty of the wrath to come; all of which we certainly deserved. Mercy deals strictly with our miserable condition and the suffering we are now facing, and the future judgment we will rightly receive for sin. God was pleased to do this, for it was predetermined before time, so that we could accurately see His love on display in fullest measure. There is no greater love than this, to lay down one's life for His friend. Jesus Christ, God the Son, took on a human flesh (He was fully God and yet fully man), a nature like ours, He was born of a virgin, He lived the sinless life that we could never live and He showed us how to submit to God, trust God and how to live the Christian life in love for others. In love, Jesus kept entrusting Himself to God and endured suffering on our behalf, He even suffered and died on a cross to pay our sin debt. He was buried and on the third day rose from the dead, conquering sin and death for good, once and for all. That anyone who would trust in this substitutionary atonement, who places faith in His death on our behalf - as payment for their sins, and surrenders their own live to Christ Jesus as Lord and the Master of their life, would be saved.
This truly is the good news for us who have believed. Our God is gracious; for it was God's grace (unmerited favor) to give us this faith as a free gift; also in giving us a free gift of eternal life by this faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, which we do not deserve. We cannot earn forgiveness by something that we have done in righteousness, but it is the free gift from God, by trusting in what Jesus Christ has already done for us by faith. Our God is Lord of all; Jesus Christ is Lord of all who live. As we respond to God in trusting Jesus Christ as our Savior, and in the hope of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit regenerates our lifeless spirit to believe Him by faith. This is the turning point of our entire lives, as the Holy Spirit of promise comes to dwell within our hearts to give us the power to obey God. We then are given the ability to trust Him and submit solely to His lordship in our lives; as we could not gain forgiveness on our own, so we cannot repent of sins on our own either. God is kind, and it is through this kindness that God grants us repentance from sin as we respond to His transforming power. This divine power takes us from the darkness and places us securely into His marvelous light, from death to life and from being slaves of sin to being slaves of His righteousness. We now are given a desire to obey Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives. An eternal life with God that we can never loose or give away, and no one else can ever take it away. The creature now has an accurate and loving relationship with the creator.
Our God is generous; which means that His lovingkindness endures forever. This is identified by all the free gifts that He so abundantly lavishes upon us; for by grace, you have been saved, through faith, and this is not by your own works, but is the free gift of God. This gift of life, that lasts forever; and better yet, that this eternal life that is ours in Christ Jesus, is spent with Him, in His presence. So we see that His mercy was a gift, grace was a gift, faith was a gift and also salvation is a free gift because He loves us and would not leave us without a remedy for sin. How do we get these free gifts that God was so pleased to offer us? All those who have the Son of God have life, and all those who do not have the Son of God, will never see life. We get all these free gifts from God the Father by faith, in and through God the Son, and all this happens by and through the power of God the Holy Spirit. Salvation is a free gift of God to all those who believe and put all their hope and trust in this gospel, when we submit ourselves to Him and seek Him alone for repentance from sin. We believe Him by faith; we believe by faith that Jesus Christ is God, that He died for our sins as the holy and blameless substitute on our behalf and that He rose from the grave victorious over sin and death. From the moment we believe God by faith, the rest of our lives will be lived by and through faith as well; for the righteous shall live by faith.
Our God is a Saving God and He is our Lord; We now have the ability by the power of the Holy Spirit to desire and carry out the will of our Father, through submission and obedience to Jesus Christ our Lord. We will not always carry out His will perfectly, although our desire to obey Him in fuller measure will increase day by day as we focus on the eternal things of our God instead of the temporal things of this earth. We were drawn by God, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who gave us a desire to love God and to obey His commandments. We came to the end of our own resources, and found ourselves unable to accomplish His will in our own strength (or) by our own will. Led by the Holy Spirit, we cry out for God's help; He regenerates us to a newness of life and then gives us a new heart, a heart that can respond to the gospel by faith. All of salvation happens by His will, through His power, by His choosing and on His own timetable. We are but recipients of God's gracious and merciful love for us.
Romans 9: 16 - So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
Each and every person who has read the reality of this gospel today has made a very important choice, to either believe and accept the appeal, or to deny the truth in rebellion. If God has show His mercy on you today, giving you a desire to know Him and the willingness to surrender your life to Him, and to seek His kindness that will lead you to repentance, then we want to help you to grow in the faith. He has saved us for His own purposes. He has given you gifts of the Holy Spirit to enable you to carry out those purposes in the church with other believers; to share the truth of this same gospel with the lost and to build up the body of Christ as you fellowship with the saints. It is imperative that you seek out this fellowship with a body of believers who know and obey God's word (in the bible), who will help to disciple you in the truth and are accurate examples of His character. If you have experienced His love for you today, then you will want to thank Him in prayer. Prayer is simply talking with God, sincerely and honestly from your heart. You can communicate with God anywhere and at all times, with whatever is on your heart. It is in prayer, that He will line your heart up with His heart. He desires to have intimate fellowship with you and He also desires that you have intimate fellowship with other believers - His beloved saints.
If you have questions about the gospel that I have shared with you today or you need assistance finding a sound biblical church so that you can have true fellowship (unity) with other believers, please e-mail us at deckman1963@gmail.com or call me - Philip at (303) 730-9642. It is my sincere desire that your life is completely changed by this gospel; for it is the power of God for salvation.