The Gospel

Verse: 

"Now I would remind you, brothers, or the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain.  For I delivered to you as of the first importance what I aslo received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep."

I Corinthians 15:1-6

Thoughts: 

It has been a couple of days since I have gotten back into the Word and even today it wasn't in the manner I have done over the past week.  Where I had intended to jump in everyday, I have realized that sometimes things come up that will knock me off of schedule.  The four day gap was a little much though.  I could feel myself start to develop excuses in my mind as to why missing one more day wouldn't be that bad.  It was a dangerous spiral I almost fell into as I believe this journaling and being in the Word at the start of the day has made my past week better.

This morning, I didn't focus on just read chapters out of the Bible as I had started.  Rather, I read a chapter out of one of my Christian living books.  I have to teach a lesson on the gospel on Thursday and so I wanted to review the chapter this morning to give me a chance to start developing an idea for the lesson.  Essentially, the gospel is the historical fact and significance of 1) the death of Jesus on the cross, 2) his burial, 3) his resurrection, and 4) his appearance to many.  It is not the emotional reaction or the epiphany we feel about hearing and believing this.  That is our testimony and the trap we fall into.  We seem to often explain this experience to people without actually explaining what it is that Christ did for us and the significance behind it.

I'm excited about the lesson as it will be a lot of apologetic material, which I enjoy.  Although we know those 4 elements are what consist of the gospel, that actual arguments as to how they were valid and accurate are also important as you try to witness to skeptics and unbelievers.  I'm excited to get started on it.  Time to bust out my old copy of The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.