God Just Wants Us
This Sunday, we started a new series entitled, “This is Good News!” As Christians we often assume that everyone is familiar with the Gospel message. Probably like many of you, the first scripture I memorized in Sunday School as a very small child, was John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (I didn't even have to look that up!) This scripture, I was taught, is the essential message of the Gospel. Everybody knows that. After all, we see that message everywhere. Who doesn’t know John 3:16?
Yes, we’ve heard it, but how do we understand and respond to the Gospel? It is accepted, assumed, confused or forgotten. These stages can also define the generational move of the gospel in our families if we are not careful to clearly pass on our faith. Quite early in Kyle’s remarks, it became clear that assuming everyone understands the Gospel is the first step away from an explicit and robust understanding of the Gospel message.
Then, with each progressive step, it is a move further and further away from the authentic Gospel message until the message is confused and then forgotten. The Gospel message is simple and should redefine everything in our lives. We get a taste of eternity in the here and now when we dwell in a deep relationship with God and begin to live in the freedom of who we are, which is a beloved son and daughter of the Most High King!
Throughout the stories of scripture, we see over and over again the covenant relationship God offers his people saying, “I am yours and you are mine.” He presents that same covenant relationship to us. Then out of a deep relationship and oneness with God, we are invited into the responsibility and privilege of ruling and reigning with him.
If we miss either the relationship or responsibility aspects of the Gospel, then we don’t understand what God is doing and cannot participate. We risk confusing our identity and/or our purpose. This is why it is so imperative that we clearly understand and accept the Gospel message because as God’s ambassadors, we are called to spread that Good News and expand the kingdom.
I was challenged when Kyle talked about the many ways we define ourselves in the post Christian/post religious America. We may find identity in our performance, pain, passion or politics (the literature teacher in me loves that alliteration). That really started me thinking a great deal about my journey as a Christian. Throughout my life in the church, I have assessed myself through most of those lenses, but God just wants us. I so identified with the beautiful message Randi gave in her testimony on Sunday, sharing how she came to understand that message in her own life. It took me a little longer to come to that place of grace & understanding and at times, I still have to work to accept the purely unconditional love God has for ME!
I am closing in on retirement age and have always been active and served in the church. Like Randi, I believed that active engagement in the church was a requirement for being a good Christian. I have come to the momentous realization that without the continual fostering of a deep relationship with God, I don’t have the solid place of spiritual alignment to hear and respond to God’s calling on my life.
I can do many things, but what is God asking of me here and now? There is much I am still seeking about God’s calling on my life at this time. However, this I know: I want to be the sheep that has ears to hear the shepherd, the deer that longs for living water and a Christian that walks in the freedom and friendship of abiding with the Father.
Can I really have this longing of my heart? Yes I can, because I know who I was created to be. Even though that relationship was fractured by sin, because of Jesus, all can and is restored. That is the simple message of the Gospel in my life, that Jesus died for me, an unworthy sinner so that I can now be restored to live in oneness with the Father because of the blood of Jesus.
I am still working on filling that longing and taking that deeper plunge into intimacy and friendship with my Savior. I am so grateful daily for my Regen family that challenges, guides and loves all of us towards that deeper place in our church and in our daily lives.
-Kay
Kay Suzelis and her husband Len live in Lake Milton, and Kay serves as the Intermediate School Principal for the LaBrae Local School District.
