Irresistible Invitation by Maxie Dunham - Day 13

Irresistible Invitation:  Responding to the Extravagant Heart of God                 

 Day 13: The Gospel by Which We Are Saved

By this Gospel you are saved…  (1 Cor 15:2)

Maxie opens this day by proclaiming that it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the death and Resurrection of Jesus.  The bottom line of the gospel is the living Christ.  We are reminded that Paul is the very first person to write about what had been preached for years.  His account precedes by a number of years the accounts of the earliest Gospels.  Just imagine what it must have been like when the story was only oral!  Imagine hearing the story of Jesus’’ birth to a virgin mother, his years as an itinerant preacher, and the stories about how he came from God and would return to God.  Imagine listening, as he was condemned to death, accepted death, forgave his murderers and promised to come again.  Imagine as you hear that low and behold God raised him from the dead and he was alive!

 

Let’s try to understand the full meaning of this good news by which you and I are saved.  What would you think if a good friend told you one day that you were in the very jaws of sin and death?  You might be a bit shocked if someone said that too you but truth be told sooner or later we all realize that the things we thought would set us free have not done so.  We realize that we have not become the person we wanted to and we know we are not the people God has called us to be.  This is where faith kicks in, you see true faith is coming to Christ to be saved and delivered from our sinful nature.  It is only faith in Christ that frees us from the jaws of death and hell. 

 

The central fact of Christian faith is the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Had it all ended with the cross, there would be no good news to share, no community of faith to bear witness.  But there was and is a resurrection, and there is as well as Christ who is alive in us today.

 

The fact that Christ chooses to be alive in any one of us today is surely a sing of the extravagant heart of God; it is also another example of God’s gifts, this time the gift of mercy.  Mercy is one of the great words of the Bible.  Jesus uses it to boldly declare an aspect of the new covenant, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” 

 

According to Dunnam the mercy that Jesus speaks of “ and demonstrates is always active, it is sympathy in action as pity and compassion expressed in gracious deeds.”  Mercy is first an attribute of God; God’s mercy involves not only kindness but also forgiveness.  God’s mercy is the act of wiping the slate clean separating us from our wrongdoings as far as the east is from the west.  God’s mercy is enacted through Jesus and the cross.

 

The discovery of God’s mercy is always a transforming experience.  To hear of God’s power and desire to cleanse us from our wrongdoings we truly receive good news, but is also often a painful experience, because in order to receive that gift we must first admit our wrongdoings.  This however, is the gospel by which we are saved and the gospel by which we live, in the shadow of his great mercy and grace.

 

 

The Heart of the Matter

 

Have you ever felt that the things you wanted most and the things you thought would set you free have not done son?  How did you react to that awareness?

 

Have you ever visited the “far country?”  What drew you back home?

 

Can you identify with Paul’s statement, “By the grace of God I am what I am?”  Why or why not?