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My spiritual mentor, John Maisel, often said to me when I was working with him at East-West Ministries, “We have to preach the gospel to ourselves daily, Tommy.”  He knew I needed to hear and heed that and he knew he did too.  I feel pretty sure he said it as much for his own benefit as he did for mine.  That tells me a lot about the importance of what he was trying to get me to grasp.

I’ve been reminded of this need to preach the gospel to myself anew every day as I was reading through Galatians, one of our latest stops on the journey (check out Join The Journey on the homepage of this website).  Preaching the gospel to myself daily (if not minute-by-minute) is essential lest I frustrate the grace of God, which I am prone to do.  What John meant when he told me to preach the gospel to myself is that I must everyday remind myself of (even relearn if I have to) the good news that I am justified and saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by my works or the works of any other save Christ and not by adherence to any law, rule, doctrine, discipline, tradition, norm, or custom—be it Old Testament, New Testament, familial, cultural, societal, city, state, federal, or international.  (Think I covered everything in that list?)

I blaspheme the grace of God if I open the door even an inch to thinking that I’m justified and saved by anything other than faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  By maintaining faith in Jesus, I sign on to the truth that (1) Jesus was crucified for my sins, thereby transferring them and their penalty onto Himself and imputing His righteousness and inheritance to me; (2) Jesus was resurrected from the dead, thereby making it possible for me to enjoy a new existence of ressurection life with Him that will last for eternity; and (3) Jesus invites me to particpate daily with Him in the fullness of His grace and the incredible Kingdom-building project He has underway in the world.  It's this salvation-by-faith truth that is the good news of the Gosepl and that's what I need a daily dose of.

Let's camp out on faith for a moment.  I've always thought of faith as the thing a person needs to have in order to enter into a saving relationship with Christ, and the thing that is called for when we face trials, tribulations and testings.  But, I'm learning more and more that faith is also a way of living my life in Christ that has me trusting in His faithfulness (not my own or anyone else's) "from first to last" (Romans 1:17).  The same faith that is the through-way into saving relationship with Jesus is the same faith that I must continue and ulimately end with.  Every minute of every day for my entire life I have a choice to make--whether to trust in the sufficiency of Christ to justify, validate and empower me or to trust in someone or something else, including striving to please God that is sometimes rooted in fear or pride.  When I sin, fall short, fail God and others, I must not look down on myself and be burdened by guilt or shame.  No, I must simply look up to Jesus and rely on Him for His forgivness, faithfulness, righteounsess and power that He is extending to me.  And when I do, the Holy Spirit unleashes in and through me fresh fruits of a renewed faith.  Remember what the Scriptures teach us...

• In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." (Romans 1:17)  
• Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6)
• The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love (Galatians 5:6)
• The life we live we live by faith in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20)

There is no better time than Easter to preach anew to yourself the Gospel--the glorious good news that by grace we have been saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8).  Live your resurrection life to the full.  Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead so that you can.  Put your faith in Him and His faithfulness and that alone.