The Gospel: Interest: to eager learning: to growing spiritually

Volume 5, Issue 2
The Gospel: Interest eager learning growing spiritually

Two months ago, Denise (not her real name) found herself in a room full of people attending a dinner event featuring Vanguard. While she knew about God from some of her personal interactions and her family, she had never really heard or understood about knowing Jesus Christ. That all changed for her on a mid-December evening.

As Vanguard sang songs about Christmas and shared fun and poignant stories about their own lives, Denise was truly engaged. At one point during the evening, people attending were asked to fill out a card and share their comments. Denise responded by saying she wanted to talk with someone about spiritual things.

One of the organizers of the event, passed on Denise’s information to a local Campus Crusade for Christ woman named Donna. (Leslie’s previous ministry boss) Recently, Donna sent an email to the members of Vanguard:

“I wanted to let you know that your concert and witness filtered out some perfectly ripe fruit in [Denise]. She received Christ a couple weeks ago, and we’ve met twice since then. Each time, she has tons of great questions–and really is beginning to grasp the truths of Scripture. We’re slowly going through the “Foundations” series, and it’s such a joy to watch the light come on. She is so teachable and eager to grow.”

The Gospel is not just for un-believers:
C. J. Mahaney writes in The Cross Centered Life, The gospel isn’t one class among many that you’ll attend during your life as a Christian– the gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in! Rightly approached, all the topics you’ll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you ’within the walls’ of the glorious gospel.

Preaching the Gospel to myself is something that has recently been sticking out to me(Leslie). Milton Vincent says is his book The Gospel Primer for Christians; “The New Testament teaches that Christians ought to hear the gospel as much as non-Christians do.” As someone who already has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior I am in just as much of need to tell myself TRUTH on any give day or hour. I am in a constant need to die to myself, my flesh, things of this world. (Galatians 2:20 comes to mind.) God has me in process as he does you. The difference is those who believe He died for their sins, have eternal hope and purpose which we read about in His word, The Bible.

The Gospel has residual effects, perhaps more than we will every see or hear about while on earth, or at least we’ll have a glimpse of. Milton defines the Gospel (a noun) as: “means good news of salvation for hell-deserving sinners through the Person and work of Jesus Christ.“

Jerry Bridges, in Gospel-Driven Sanctification says: To use an expression…,we must ‘preach the gospel to ourselves every day.’ For me that means I keep going back to Scriptures such as Isaiah 52:6, Galatians 2:20 and Romans 8:1. It means that I frequently repeat the words from an old hymn, ‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood righteousness.’


A Belated Valentine!

 For God so loVed the world,
     That he gAve
        His onLy
             bEgotten
            SoN
              That whoever
Believeth in hIm should
              Not perish,
     But have Everlasting life.
-John 3:16


PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Pray for the softening of hearts that are hard, so they may hear the Gospel.
• Pray for a team that is going to Brazil mid March to train a partner music ministry there.
• We would be living the Gospel out in our daily lives.

CHECK THIS OUT!
Our newest department New Media Labs have been busy helping to develop some new sites.
http://mediaforministry.org/
-An online media base for equipping and training.